


5 am, waking up

by mysterious_intentions



Series: Skies for forever [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Forgiveness, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Mutual Pining but they Don't Know It, POV Draco Malfoy, Slowburn Dramione, Slowburn Redeemed Draco Malfoy, some depictions of violence but mostly about forgiveness and change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 68,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23501158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysterious_intentions/pseuds/mysterious_intentions
Summary: He didn’t want this. Never did. Hermione Granger isn’t some stranger— she is his classmate, someone he spoke to regularly before, someone he saw every day, someone he wasn’t remotely friends with, but someone who wasn’t nothing either.But now, faced with the opportunity to lord his superiority, he finds himself wondering what the fuss is all about. Pureblood and mudblood is just…blood. Blood is blood, and blood is red.A coming-of-age Draco POV story as he returns to his eighth year of Hogwarts and struggles with living in the aftermath of the war.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Series: Skies for forever [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1897366
Comments: 401
Kudos: 636





	1. The feeling that is mutual

**Author's Note:**

> Mysteriously reappearing with a Dramione multi-chaptered story. :) Probably 10 years late to this fandom, but I wanted to explore Draco Malfoy’s post-war journey towards redemption in a way that wasn’t too black-hole depressing or too easily resolved. I wanted to create a compelling reality of a 17-year old adolescent who was objectively not-nice, but also never truly evil, and his struggles in inching along a path he’s never walked.
> 
> This story contains references to Hermione’s torture by Bellatrix at Malfoy Manor; the scenes were heavily influenced by the movie and book, so I personally think it’s less than or around that same level. But reader’s discretion advised, just in case. 
> 
> Please enjoy!

* * *

He heard her gasp before he saw her.

Granted, considering the pulsing throb that would no doubt bloom into a very purple swollen eye tomorrow, it was understandable for his eyesight to be a bit impaired.

He thudded his head against the bookshelf, instantly regretting it as sharp pain spiked through his skull. Draco let out a watery cough, speckles of blood landing on his dirtied robes, and summoned enough concentration for his eyes to focus on the fuzzy image of Hermione Granger.

Oh great, exactly who he did not need. What was she here for? To smirk at him as he finally got what was coming for him? To relish in her victory as the boy who mercilessly harassed her for years was now rightfully, and quite literally, bloody and broken?

Or perhaps Granger, being the epitome of all things saintly and just and righteous, wasn’t here out of malice and was simply concerned about the wellbeing of her books. Yes, he knew his blood was splattered all over the spines of her precious tomes and seeping in the woodgrain of this dusty floor, but he was rather pre-occupied with trying to stay conscious to do much about it.

Granger opened her mouth to say something, but then promptly shut it. As if rooted to the spot, Granger stayed frozen a few meters beside him, though he noted that her fists appeared to be trembling by her sides. What, was she struggling to stop her fists from pummeling him too? Wouldn’t have been the first time.

In no mood to continue dancing around this silence game they were playing, Draco grit out though bared teeth, “Here to laugh at the slimy little cockroach of a Death Eater? Go ahead, have at it. Or is this about the books,” he vaguely gestured at the bookshelf behind him, “and the atrocity that I’ve committed by staining them with my blood.”

Something within Granger activated, and she straightened up as her eyes narrowed. With a frustrated huff and a few quick and angry footsteps, she was towering over his slumped form.

Draco cracked a sordid smile, though he winced at the way it stretched his split lips.

“Oh? Come for a closer view—”

“Shut up Malfoy,” Granger clipped. In one fluid motion, she brandished her wand point-blank in his face.

Panic seized him, the smile dropping from his face. He supposed he hadn’t thought of this possibility, though in hindsight it was foolish of him not to consider it. Hell, Potter had tried to kill him before, it wasn’t so farfetched that Granger wanted to get in on the action too.

“ _Episkey_ ,” Granger pronounced perfectly.

A tingling heat flowed through his nose, abruptly followed by a numbing coldness. There was an audible _crack_ as his broken nose re-aligned itself.

Before he could blink, Granger had lowered herself to the floor beside him— careless to how his blood smeared sticky splotches on her robes— and carefully held his wrist. Her thumb caressed the skin over his pulse point and he nearly shivered at the contrast between her warmth and his coldness.

Granger shook her head as her fingers trailed the length of his mangled wrist, a look of horror openly painted on her face. She exhaled in frustration. “Your wrist shouldn’t even be able to bend this way…why would people continue to hurt other human beings like this? Have we learned nothing from the war?”

Draco let out a harsh laugh. “It’s not that surprising, Granger. I’m sure you’re able to put all the pieces together. It’s the first week of school, the first time that Draco Malfoy is out in the open and unprotected. There are people who’ve lost their families and suffered permanent trauma because of my…kind, people who immediately associate the Malfoy name with dark arts and murder, and what do you know— I got off without a single day in Azkaban. This result is all very logical, you see.”

Granger frowned, her forehead creasing, but she said nothing to refute him. Instead, she muttered a curt _Ferula._

Draco hissed under his breath as his wrist shifted back into place in agonizing seconds, the pain blinding his vision white. When he blinked away the kaleidoscope of stars in his eyes, Draco had to muster all his strength to not pass out immediately. He registered that Granger was still there, but she was no longer touching him and had moved half a meter back.

“ _Tergeo_ ,” she incanted, and with a swish of her wand, vanished the blood from his robes and library books like sunlight evaporating rain water. “I suspect that you have a few broken ribs that Madam Pomfrey would be better at mending. We best get you up to the hospital wing.”

Glancing down and finding himself appearing almost normal, the weight of what had just happened suddenly hit him. Quite simply, this situation didn’t make any bloody sense.

“But what isn’t logical is all this…what’s your angle, Granger? Are you doing this because you want me to be indebted to you? After this, are you going to go write to Potter and Weasel about the pathetic state that Malfoy has been kicked down to? You should have taken a picture first before you cleaned me up,” Draco sneered, glaring at her from under his lashes.

Granger rolled her eyes and released a heavy sigh. She crossed her arms over her stomach and spoke calmly, “Believe it or not Draco,” he raised an eyebrow at the use of his first name, “as much of a prat you were, and apparently still _are_ , I don’t wish this kind of pain and suffering upon you. Even if the feeling isn’t mutual.”

Draco lingered on her words, no doubt a roundabout referral to her night of torture at Malfoy Manor. He wasn’t an idiot. But something didn’t sit right with him. She talked as if she knew him, as if she could only conclude one option in her head that Draco Malfoy somehow condoned her torture and would always want Hermione Granger to be in pain and suffering. The little swot couldn’t have been more wrong.

He felt his eyelids droop like lead curtains, but he needed to say this. She had to know that she wasn’t always right about everything in the whole damn world. “Well news flash for you, Granger. The feeling is mutual. Believe it or not, I didn’t wish it for you either.”

He managed to catch the perplexed expression on Granger’s face as he allowed himself to succumb to darkness.

* * *

Light streamed through the unobstructed window, basking Draco in a warm sunbeam. Draco shot up with a start, wildly taking in his surroundings even as he was blinking to consciousness. Lumpy white beds. Bitter smell of medical potions. Fraying green curtains. Impracticable diamond-patterned windows that had absolutely no heat insulation against Scottish winters.

Hospital Wing. He was in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing. His heartbeat began settling to a normal rhythm as he committed that this was real and he was in a good place. Memories from the previous night unfolded themselves in his mind— Granger? Had she brought him here? Draco turned to the left, then to the right, half-expecting the brunette witch to be sitting primly at his side, watching him with a raised eyebrow.

There was no one, of course. No one was beside him. He was alone in the middle of the room, flanked by nothing except white beds on the right and white beds on the left.

x-x-x

After begrudgingly admitting that he had indeed taken a nasty spill down a flight of stairs (Really Granger? That’s the best excuse the brightest witch of her age could have come up with?), and convincing Madame Pomfrey that this bout of clumsiness was a one-off occasion, Draco was discharged right before lunch time.

The smell of rich meats and sound of murmuring students was familiar, and he felt himself relax as he slipped through the Great Hall doors. Without much fanfare, he slid into his usual seat across from Blaise. A steak and kidney pie materialized in front of him, and Draco half-heartedly stabbed at it with his fork, watching the steam rise out of the flaky crust. He quietly marveled at how perfectly functional his wrist was—Granger’s magic was so precise that he could hardly believe that it had been snapped like a decaying tree branch just last night.

“What happened to your eye?” Blaise asked, an amused lilt to his smooth drawl.

Oh right, his black eye. Though not quite as swollen as it would have been if he hadn’t been found by Granger, it was still conspicuous enough that he should have cast a glamor charm.

“Fell down a flight of stairs…” Draco mumbled. What? He had to keep the story consistent.

Blaise snickered, then snorted in that dignified way that only he could pull off.

“Amused, Blaise?” Draco scowled back.

“As a matter of fact, yes. It’s a wonder that you survived the Dark Lord with lying skills like that,” Blaise lowered his voice, something shifting in his dark brown irises. “So, who were they and how many were you up against? Have you already planned how you’ll make those cowards regret it?”

Draco looked away, his scowl deepening, before taking a tepid bite of his pie. The beef was far too seasoned, coating his tongue in thick salt. “I don’t know. There were four or five of them. Gryffindors and even a bloody Hufflepuff. It seems the secret to inter-house unity is to find a common enemy to beat to a bloody pulp,” Draco chuckled hollowly, “and as much as I would like to hex all their arses into next week, I have to lay low on my probation. It’s either here or Azkaban, and I rather see your mug than a dementor’s.”

Blaise hummed, folding his hands under his chin. “Not too keen on fairness when it’s against Slytherins huh. They say us Slytherins are the evil ones, but everyone else is just as bad.”

As if responding to being summoned, the doors to the Great Hall burst open and Gryffindors came streaming in like sardines released from a dam. Leading the pack was none other than Hermione Granger herself, with her faithful side characters, the ginger Weaselette and Longbottom, by her side. Younger Gryffindors swarmed their sides, but Granger seemed to duck from the attention and hide in her book, though she did give a polite hello to some of the more eager students. She never glanced in his direction, and he doubt that she realized that he had left the Hospital Wing.

Appetite lost, Draco pushed his food away. “What world do we live in when Granger is the most popular girl in school?” Draco murmured, massaging his temples.

He expected Blaise to immediately agree, smirk a little, maybe even sneer. Then, they would proceed to pounce on how insufferable Granger was and how the world had really tilted itself on its axis when Granger was the hotshot hero and Draco Malfoy the condemned pariah.

Instead, Blaise lifted his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug, his expression neutral. “Well, better Granger than Potter or Weasley. At least she’s clever.”

Draco’s mouth hung open. Blaise was delivering a compliment and it wasn’t even a thinly-veiled insult?

“Zabini mate, are you feeling alright in the head? This is Granger you’re talking about here. Aside from being a swotty know-it-all with minimal qualities of a proper woman, she’s a…muggle-born. You hate her,” Draco exclaimed.

“Without Potter and Weasley she’s not so bad,” Blaise said, taking a bite out of his sandwich and chewing.

“What initiated this change in attitude? I’m afraid I’m missing something here.”

A smirk flickered onto Blaise’s face. “Nosy, aren’t you? Careful there Malfoy, you’ve always been rather obsessed with her and her crew, but you’re not even bothering to hide it now.”

“That’s not it,” Draco brushed off, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s just, last I knew you hated everything about her and her blood. That doesn’t change overnight,” Draco stated, careful to tamp down any inflections in his voice that could be misinterpreted as too-much interest.

“But they do change over a war. You of all people should know that. And if you must know, and it seems like you absolutely must as you’re not letting me eat in peace,” Blaise rolled his eyes at Draco’s growl, but continued, “Granger and I partnered for potions and it wasn’t all that unpleasant. Not once did she mention the war or anything against Slytherins, and she’s admittedly bloody brilliant. She’d catch my mistakes before I even had a chance to think about making them.”

“You chose her as your partner?”

“No, she asked me. And I thought why not? Slytherins are resourceful, and Granger is a better resource than any textbook.”

They settled into a silence after that, Draco frowning at his wrist while Blaise munched on his sandwich.

“Oh, don’t brood that she didn’t ask you. You were already partnered with Nott that day.”

“I’m not brooding,” Draco snapped. And he _wasn’t_ brooding because he had no reason to be. Granger could be nice to all the other Slytherins she wanted. Blaise wasn’t as good as potions as himself, but the boy wasn’t a dunce, so it wasn’t necessarily a bad decision to choose him as a partner. And perhaps the most glaring fact of all— Draco was obviously Granger’s enemy, so why would he want to be her partner? Like he needed her approval that he was a capable potioneer.

“Right…” His somewhat-friend regarded him skeptically.

Frustrated at himself or Blaise, or probably both, Draco insisted, “Let’s talk about something else. The topic of Granger has already consumed far too much of our lunch.”

Ignoring his suggestion, Blaise continued on, “Plus, it helps that she’s gotten somewhat pretty. Her cheekbones are high and her eyes are intelligent. Don’t you agree?”

“No,” Draco shot down. But of course, now he couldn’t help but think about it. He spotted her alarmingly quickly at the table across from him, as if he was already hyper-aware of her curly brown hair and high cheekbones and intelligent eyes, and found that he really couldn’t refute Blaise’s point. Even without a swipe of makeup, it was obvious that Granger had a pretty face and toned body.

She was chatting with a gaggle of young Gryffindor students, and judging by the plastered smile on her face, they were likely harassing her for war adventures. Adventures that were likely tales for the history books, but nightmare fuel for the person who experienced them.

Draco groaned and slammed his hands on the table, causing several other students to startle. Pain lanced through his bones; his fragile wrist protesting against being battered against the solid wood. One young wizard even dropped a full goblet of pumpkin juice, the orange pulp sliding down the ledge of the table and dribbling onto the floor.

He couldn’t think of her that way. She couldn’t make herself at home in his head. He wrangled up the thoughts regarding any form of attraction to her and meticulously filed them away.

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x-x

x-x

* * *

_Her sobs echo through the stone walls of the drawing room, each whimper clear as a glass bell in the sparsely furnished space._

_Bellatrix hovers over her prone body, alternating manically between unnerving whispers and furious screaming, gnashing her teeth mere centimeters over Hermione’s face. Hermione’s wrists are bent at unnatural angles, Bellatrix’s vice grip no doubt leaving a trail of bruises down her pale, white skin._

_Gone is the insufferable witch that held her shoulders high with pride and always had an answer for everything. She’s just a human, a young teenager, chest heaving for air as she tries to survive this._

_Bellatrix utters the Cruciatus curse— hatred straining every syllable, flecks of spit spraying straight into Hermione’s eyes. A terrible shriek rips through Hermione’s throat, her voice vibrating every surface in the room as she convulses on the floor, her hands and feet flailing against the woodgrain floors in an uneven staccato. Draco visibly flinches. Her scream shudders down to snivels, but it’s still reverberating endlessly inside Draco’s head._

_He will be haunted by this scream for the rest of his life._

_Tears stream freely down Hermione’s dirty cheeks, and he feels the pressure building behind his own eyes as well. Bile rises in his throat, acid churning restlessly in his stomach. He looks away._

_He didn’t want this. Never did. Hermione Granger isn’t some stranger— she is his classmate, someone he spoke to regularly before, someone he saw every day, someone he wasn’t remotely friends with, but someone who wasn’t nothing either._

_He knew that in a roundabout way, this was entirely his fault. If only he hadn’t become a Death Eater. If only he hadn’t fixed the Vanishing Cabinet. If only he had found a way to save Dumbledore rather than kill him to save his own skin. If only he wasn’t such a pathetic coward and could actually do something that was the right thing to do._

_Another ear-splitting scream pierces through the tense silence, and Hermione jerks her head to the side, choking on her blood as she coughs it onto the floor. She’s barely conscious, but her intelligent eyes and high cheekbones manage to find his face, and she stares at him with hollow misery. Her eyes don’t hold a trace of anger._

_He realizes then, that even after all that, Hermione doesn’t blame him._

_Hermione’s eyes roll to the back of her head, her eyelids fluttering shut. Draco’s back goes ramrod straight, his hands fisted at his sides as cold sweat pools into his palm and between his fingers. No. Stop. His own breaths come out shallow, hard and fast. He’s crying now, his vision going out of focus as hot tears roll down his face._

_But then he sees her chest rise just a little, and relief soothes his frayed nerves. The reprieve is short-lived, however, as Bellatrix grips her wand and uses the sharp point to carve letters into the unblemished skin of Hermione’s wrist._

* * *

Draco woke up shaking, quite literally, as Blaise gripped his shoulders and shook him back and forth like a rag doll.

“Draco! Wake the hell up!” Blaise hissed.

“I’m up, I’m up,” Draco answered hoarsely, clambering to sit up and shoving Blaise to the edge of his bed. He paused, instinctively massaging his neck. Why did his throat feel like it had been scratched raw?

“Finally. You were screaming so loudly in your sleep that you’re lucky I woke up first to cast a _Silencio_. Though it seems like Nott over here could sleep through a bloody fire,” Blaise gestured at Theo across from Draco’s bed, still dozing soundly in his bed.

Draco froze. “Did I…did I say anything?”

Blaise raised an eyebrow. “No words, just screaming. You alright there?”

“Yeah, just…war and stuff, don’t want to talk about it,” Draco replied evasively. Draco dropped eye contact with Blaise, where they might have been a tiny sliver of concern in his cool black eyes, and he settled back into bed and faced towards the wall.

“Fine, well I’m going back to bed. It’s 5 am and too early for all your shite Draco.”

When he felt Blaise’s weight lift off the bed, Draco released an exhale he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He stared vacantly at a speck on his wall, his body coiled tightly like a wound up string. After Blaise’s even breathing and Theo’s soft snores could be heard clearly enough, Draco mechanically pulled himself upright. He changed out of his silk pajamas and threw on black trousers and a white button-down shirt, and then was out the door.

* * *

Breathe in through the nose, breathe out through the mouth. Loosen the tension in the shoulders. Let the hands hang open, don’t ball them into fists. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Focus on the rhythm.

Draco’s shoes pounded against the grass, wet with a shiny layer of the morning’s dew. The sky was still dark, but there was the slightest hint of periwinkle blue as the stars began to fade. Draco didn’t know where he was running, or for how long he had been running for that matter. There was a stitch in his stomach that ached with every stride, his lungs burned like fire, and his legs were heavy, like lead weights had been strapped to his ankles.

It wasn’t quite true that running cleared the mind, not exactly. After the screams and sweat and sobbing of his dream had fizzled to white noise, Draco hyper-focused on all the small details. The way she scrunched her eyes, deep furrows lining her forehead. The silent words that Hermione mouthed as she was tortured to oblivion. The dark red blood that streamed down from the jagged lines of her _Mudblood_ scar.

He searched through his mind, finding the compartment nestled deep in the recesses of his suppressed thoughts, and shoved everything back in. He had dreamt this dream before, but never had so much escaped.

Maybe it was the world’s twisted form of vengeance, a punishment for his endless cowardice and selfish weaknesses. To protect himself and his family, he was willing to sacrifice everything and everyone. He had every reason to be haunted.

He bet that Hermione wouldn’t have been like him. Hermione would have found a way to do the right thing. Hermione would have been able to make the right choices, unlike himself, who only blundered between bad choice to bad choice.

When he ran until his entire body throbbed and was on the brink of collapsing, Draco stumbled to a brisk walk, his hands clutching the side of his stomach as he gasped for air. As his heart rate slowed down, Draco leaned against the castle walls and inhaled deeply, the cool, crisp oxygen flooding his exhausted body. His white button-down shirt was drenched, partially translucent, and his black trousers were sticking to his thighs uncomfortably.

His stomach gurgled, and it struck him how famished he was. Judging by the distance that the sun had risen over the horizon, Draco guessed that it was between half-past six or seven. Hopefully he could stuff down breakfast before the rest of the castle roused awake. The castle was eerily quiet as he strode through the hallways, and he quickened his pace. Hogwarts was both his salvation and his nightmare. Between this castle and Malfoy Manor, he had plenty of ghosts to go around.

In his rush, Draco was late to notice that someone else had simultaneously been heading towards the Great Hall doors. His long fingers reached the handle first and he thrust the door open.

There was an indignant huff as the wooden door smacked into a face, followed by a clatter of porcelain and the sound of liquid sloshing onto the floor. Draco winced as the person hissed sharply, then proceeded to mutter under their breath.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you there, honest,” Draco dropped the door and looked towards what appeared to be a puddle of tea on the floor. In one swift motion, he pulled his wand out from his trousers. “Let me get that for you. _Tergeo._ ”

The angry muttering abruptly halted. His confusion only lasted for a few seconds, as Draco looked up and immediately understood why.

Oh great, exactly who he did not need. Again.

Hermione Granger gaped at him, probably reeling in the shock that Draco had apologized to anyone, least of all _her_.

Draco looked away and rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah…morning,” he mumbled.

The brightest witch of her age cleared her throat and regarded him warily. “…Thank you for cleaning me up.”

“I really didn’t see you there,” Draco insisted again.

“It’s fine,” Granger dismissed. She paused, biting her lip. This accidental civil conversation must have jarred the psychoanalytical profile she had of him. However, she ultimately lost to her thirst for quenching unanswered questions and asked, “Malfoy, why are you down here so early? And why are you dressed like that?”

He pulled at the hem of his white button down. “There’s nothing wrong with my clothes. I always wear this.” Though he wrinkled his nose at how starchy the material had become now that his sweat had dried.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear anything other than Slytherin robes or a pressed black suit, regardless of the weather or informality of the occasion. Nor have I ever seen you so…disheveled. And this is an ungodly early hour, I’ve never seen anyone else up before—”

She continued like this for a bit, rationalizing why he could be here without him confirming a word. This logical rambling must have been a nervous tic, kind of annoying, but kind of reassuring as well. Hermione Granger was still terrible at navigating awkward social situations, not even a war had changed that.

She suddenly gasped, pulling Draco out of his thoughts. He looked at her just as she turned away, her cheeks coloring pink. “Sorry…I shouldn’t have gotten so caught up. Your personal… _bedtime affairs_ are not my business.”

Two apologies in the span of 5 minutes, which is 2 more than the entire 7 years that they’ve known each other.

Draco put the puzzle pieces together and fought to hide a smirk, bemused at her dirty conclusion. “Granger, not that my personal bedtime affairs are any of your business, but I was out running.”

Granger scrunched her nose up, wrinkling it like a rabbit. “In business casual wear? And Dragonhide boots?”

“What else?”

“Joggers and trainers?”

“Come again?”

“Never mind, forget I said anything. Now if you’ll excuse me…” Granger sidestepped beside him and tugged the door, hesitantly holding it open for him.

Draco reluctantly followed after her and they walked silently down the hall. He lazily slowed his pace to avoid catching up with her, though he needn’t to since she clearly had the same idea as she briskly fast-walked.

Much like the day before, Draco slinked into his usual seat. What he didn’t count on was Granger doing the exact same, as she settled into her seat directly across from him one mere table away. They both simultaneously glanced up and stiffened at the unobstructed view of each other.

Granger was the first to drop eye contact, popping open a book and biting into a slice of unbuttered, whole wheat toast.

Opting for a simple breakfast, Draco selected an apple, poached eggs, sausages, and after an internal debate also pulled a slice of toast, which he proceeded to lightly butter because he was _not_ copying Granger.

With her blatantly ignoring him, Draco couldn’t help but use the opportunity to stare. Her cheeks were clean, not a trace of dirty tear tracks. Her hair wasn’t matted and mangled by Bellatrix’s manhandling, instead, it was let loose in familiar bushy curls. Her skin appeared smooth and soft, no angry bruises purpling her wrists or neck.

Granger was fine. He committed this as real and as a fact, and carefully filed it into the same compartment as earlier.

Suddenly, Granger raised her head and caught him staring. She jumped in her seat as she met the intensity of his gaze, and instinctively glared back at him. He didn’t look away. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, reducing the effect of her glare, and Draco briefly wondered what kind of nightmares Granger carried with her.

* * *


	2. Dead bodies in my head

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

_Hermione’s body wracks with sobs, her cries growing in desperation as Bellatrix dips her finger under Hermione’s chin and lifts her head._

_“Not so pretty anymore, hm?” Bellatrix sneers, raking her nails across Hermione’s puffy red face. Like untrimmed thorns, her nails leave thin scratches in their wake._

_Suddenly, Bellatrix straightens up, dumping Hermione to the floor like a sack of dead fish. “Cissy, we don’t really have a need for this filthy mudblood, do we? It’s only Potter that our Lord has an interest in.”_

_Oh no. Draco pales as white as a corpse, his heart hammering against his chest and his blood bubbling like boiling water. He fortifies his shields with an additional layer of protection. Bellatrix couldn’t know, or Hermione would be dead simply to teach him a lesson._

_His mother recoils ever so slightly— his mother is exactly that, a mother, and Hermione is someone else’s daughter and the same age as her son— but the reaction is gone in an instant. Narcissa speaks her next words with measured nonchalance, “Now Bella, there’s no need to be rash. The girl’s mind may hold information that is of interest to our Dark Lord. Why don’t we put her in the cellar for today? Now that the girl knows what fate awaits her if she continues to withhold information, she may reconsider her silence.”_

_His mother’s cool blue gaze roams over Draco, but he can’t tell what she wants from him._

_Bellatrix pouts. “But we have Potter and the Weasley boy for that, don’t we? A few Cruciatus curses and they’ll both be on their knees, spilling the beans or spilling their blood.”_

_“No…”_

_The plea is as soft as a whisper, but she might as well have yelled them all the same._

_“No…don’t hurt Harry and Ron, please,” Hermione’s voice is a rasp._

_Bellatrix whirls around, her eyes like ice. “How dare you speak out of turn? Disgusting bitch.”_

_Hermione stares at the glittering chandelier with red-rimmed eyes. Her tears fall slowly, like glistening diamonds dropping against the black floors. “You can do what you want with me. Torture me, kill me. But please, I beg of you. Please spare Harry and Ron.”_

_Silence settles heavy like a fog, but Draco’s mind is churning at a hundred kilometers a minute. Does she understand what she just did? Hermione Granger had just signed her fucking death wish. What is he supposed to do? Can he talk his crazy aunt out of this? Should he grab Hermione and make a break for it? Where can they even go? They will both be hunted the moment he steps foot out of Malfoy Manor, but there are a few safe houses that can buy them time while they formulate a plan. Yes okay, this can work. Hermione is good at plans, granted she doesn’t try to murder him at the first opportunity._

_However, as it turns out, Draco doesn’t need to make a choice._

_An unnerving smile spreads across Bellatrix’s ruby-red lips. Her eyes are manic like a rabid animal, and she barks out a laugh that sends chills up each individual vertebrae of Draco’s spine._

_“Alright then,” Bellatrix’s shrill voice is jarringly chipper. “As you wish. Filthy mudblood.”_

_Jets of green light burst from Bellatrix’s wand and Hermione is dead before Draco can do a thing._

* * *

“Draco— bloody hell mate, wake up! _Draco!_ ”

Sweat was everywhere. Slicked across his forehead. Clammy in his hands. Coating the bed sheets. Draco bolted up, gulping for breath as if he had been submerged underwater. Blankets tangled around his legs like a twine of rope. _  
_

Blaise sighed, moving to stand up from Draco’s bed. “…Are you alright?”

Draco nodded mutely, but kept his eyes trained in front of him.

“You were screaming again…” Blaise carefully commented.

From across the room, Theo rubbed at his eyes. Grunting, he propped his upper body up with his elbows and blinked at Draco. “Bloody hell, Draco. I don’t envy these nightmares you’ve been having. Was someone trying to kill you?”

“Something like that,” Draco muttered. Unable to look at any of his housemates in the eye, Draco kicked off the covers and swung his legs over the side of his bed. He leaned over and rummaged for a white shirt, black trousers, and his boots. “I’m going for a run.”

“Right now?” Theo twisted his body and checked the clock sitting on his night stand. “It’s 5:30 in the morning.”

“Yes. No use trying to sleep tonight,” Draco replied.

Draco felt a hand grip his shoulder, and he jolted in surprise at the gentle touch. He peered at Blaise quizzically, Slytherins rarely touched each other if they could avoid it.

“Malfoy, you are literally running away from your problems. Don’t you want to talk about it and get that shite out of your head? It’s obviously not all sunshine in there. Even if you don’t want to talk to us about it, at least talk to _someone._ ”

Draco jerked out of Blaise’s grasp and scooted out of arm’s length. He roughly shucked off his soaked pajama shirt and pulled on the white button down. “Oh? Is that all it takes? A warm and cozy chat around the fire and all these silly little murders and tortures will be out of my head? Dumbledore will magically come back to life, and with a wave of his wand, erase all the trauma and give us our happily ever afters?”

Draco haphazardly buttoned the first 3 buttons of his shirt, shoved his legs through his trousers, and stuffed his feet into his shoes, forgoing hunting around for socks. He heard Blaise scoff behind him, but the other boy made no move to hold him back.

“Fine, suit yourself Draco. Keep being an insufferable git. But once you push everyone away, you’re going to find yourself all alone in a truly dark place.”

Pausing at the doorway, Draco inclined his head back and simpered. “Blaise, don’t you get it? I’m already there, and I have never left.”

* * *

As he stepped onto the castle grounds, the cool morning air was like a balm against his overheated skin. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, a bright orange ball that lit up the night sky and brushed the bottom of clouds with pink dust. Draco paused, drinking in this tiny fragment of peace before he had to delve back into the dark labyrinth of his mind. Breathe in through the nose, breathe out through the mouth.

Draco ran— no destination or time limit in mind. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Focus on the rhythm.

Two nights in a row of Hermione Granger. Once again, he had been nothing but a coward. Even his mother had tried to do the right thing, tried to spare Hermione in the only way she could. What was that look his mother gave him supposed to mean? What did she want him to _do_?

His dream-self had been prepared to throw it all away to save Granger…but why? It would have been utterly pointless, completely against his Slytherin senses of self-preservation.

_Would it have been? After all, this is Hermione Granger we’re talking about here. Her side won the war._

The unbidden thought raced through his mind so abruptly that Draco nearly tripped over his feet. Where did that come from? But like an unlocked door that wasn’t completely shut, Draco’s thoughts began meandering down an unmapped path.

He would _Stupefy_ his aunt, followed by an _Expelliarmus_ for good measure. He would scoop up Granger’s battered body into his arms and rush out of the manor and out of the ward’s perimeters. He would disparate both of them to…to the safe house in France. He would heal her wounds and rouse her awake.

And then she would scramble away from him and maybe even punch him, like the wallop he took back in third year. She would ramble on about how she can’t leave Potter and Weaselbee and stay with a Death Eater like him.

And then she would be gone.

And Draco would be dead. Maybe his whole family would be too, and saving her would have indeed been utterly pointless.

Or…or maybe…

She would punch him, and it’d still pack a wallop, but she wouldn’t scramble away. Maybe he would decorate the safe house with red and gold and tea and books and she would feel comfortable enough. Maybe she would ask him to come with her, and together they would save Potter and Weaselbee. Maybe they would free the prisoners from his dreaded cellar with his inside knowledge. Maybe they would live in some sort of furnished tent, he was sure Granger had something clever like that, and they would plot and plan and save the world.

Draco slowed to a stop, a wry smile playing at his lips. Maybe every single thought of her wouldn’t have to be carefully sorted with a fine-tooth comb and shoved into a compartment, which he was about to do yet again. Because if this kept this up— and he kept seeing her, talking to her, and thinking about her— he was going to be haunted by her for the rest of his life.

He closed his eyes and arranged all these thoughts of Granger into a single file line, ready to march back to their locked door. When he passed the doors to the Great Hall, Draco resolutely walked past them. Skipping breakfast.

He descended the steps back to the Slytherin dungeons without meeting a single soul, and when he returned to his dorm, both his roommates were fast asleep. A glint of purple liquid caught his eye, and when he walked closer to his bed, saw that it was a calming draught nestled snugly on his re-made bed sheets.

The note attached to it stated: “ _Don’t be a stubborn wanker and take this potion.”_

* * *

Avoiding Granger was going swimmingly well.

Draco slipped into classrooms seconds before their lessons started and was also the first one out the door. Sometimes, he dashed in and out of the Great Hall at off-peak hours, but he mostly hoarded simple meals and snacks in his trunk. 

Frankly, he didn’t go much of anywhere, becoming something of a homebody in the Slytherin common room and his dorm. But he wasn’t bored or lonely or anything— he had found a hobby! Who knew reading up on ancient runes could be so fascinating?

(Oh, if his first-year self saw him now, he would have balked at this life.)

The nightmares didn’t go away and the content was still just as unpleasant.

But at least Granger was no longer the star of all of them, and that was what he called progress.

* * *

_“Dean? No…he’s just a boy, he doesn’t even know that I’m his father. Don’t go after him, please.”_

_“Well, Mr. Thomas,” the voice says with the kind of silk that makes hair rise on the skin, “Maybe you should have thought of that before you so rudely refused to join our ranks.”_

_Draco turns away as Dean Thomas’s father writhes on the floor, blood gurgling out of his purple lips and dribbling down his dark skin._

He was ripped awake like a dead man being pulled out of the earth, and clumsily stumbled to vomit. After rinsing his mouth of the acid coating his teeth, Draco set out for his nightly run. He stuck to the path that clung to the walls of the castle. 

x-x-x

_The hearth doesn’t have a speck of ash, so he speculates that it’s probably only used for decorative purposes. Muggles don’t use the Floo network, right? Draco peers at the picture frame perched on the marble mantelpiece of a sleek looking fireplace. It contains an unmoving image of Justin Finch-Fletchley sandwiched between two austere but elegant looking adults, presumably the Hufflepuff’s parents._

_Judging by the matching white-leather couches, glossy hardwood floors, and tasteful collection of muggle-art of the room he was standing in, Finch-Fletchley’s family lives on the upper-crust of muggle society. If in some strange alternate universe where the Malfoys were muggles, would their home have also looked something like this…?_

_Screams and sobs reverberate in the next room over, shaking the array of glass pictures and knick-knacks delicately arranged in their living room. A porcelain vase shatters somewhere in the corner, delicate shards scattering like little knives._

_Draco’s hands clench at his sides, and his blood curdles at the knowledge that his classmate’s parents are being tortured, and likely soon murdered, a scant 5 meters away. He hates being part of these…“events,” in addition to finding nothing entertaining about the torture of innocents, another drop of black sin stains his grey soul another shade darker._

He groggily pulled himself to a sitting position and gripped at his heart, feeling like an icicle dripped cold water down from his chest and diffused to the numbness in his toes. After a trip to the loo to splash real water on his face, Draco set out for his nightly run. He decided to stray a little today, and circled the black lake more times than he could count.

x-x-x

_Through the sliver of space in the open door, he sees his mother curled up on the chaise lounge. She’s facing away from him, but she can’t conceal her shaking shoulders; he watches as she wipes a tear from her eyes and pats at the corners with a handkerchief._

_Never in his life had he seen his mother cry. It seemed like an impossible thing— like rain that wasn’t wet, or a fire that wasn’t hot._

_Draco slips in through the door and cautiously approaches. “Mother…”_

_His mother clears her throat and straightens up, pulling on a polite smile that doesn’t clear the misery in her eyes. The handkerchief disappears, and she folds her hands demurely over her lap. “Draco my darling, I didn’t hear you come in. Is there something you need?”_

_“No…there isn’t. Mother, are you alright?”_

_“Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”_

_“Well…you’re crying aren’t you?”_

_There’s a beat of silence. His mother sighs and her smile drops. With a flick of her wand, the door shuts. She mutters a Muffliato before gesturing Draco to come closer._

_“Draco, I’m sorry that you had to see that…unbecoming display.”_

_“There’s no need to apologize mother. This…situation hasn’t been entirely pleasant for all of us.”_

_His mother twists her lips into a hard frown and shakes her head. “Draco, listen to me. You mustn’t ever do what I just did—show weakness. You must always keep your shields up. Fortify them constantly. Never let them waver, even for a moment. If the Dark Lord detects even a shred of empathy for those whom he considers lesser, you will be punished without mercy.”_

_Draco’s silver eyes harden to steel. “I know, mother.”_

_His mother heaves another long exhale, and he can see the rings of exhaustion shadowing her eyes. “At the core, you are not a bad person Draco. The circumstances and choices of your parents has led you to this current predicament, and for that I am truly sorry.” Her eyes are a glassy blue, like the ocean on a cloudy day, and he sees the tears prickling in the corners again._

_He wipes the tears with his index finger, but knows that he can’t do a thing for her. A powerless human crawling on his knees against a monster. A useless son who can’t protect his parents. A vulnerable teenager who is scared of all his choices._

For the first time, the act of waking up was a quiet one. A trail of tears tracked down his cheeks, sticky against his dry skin. He silently rubbed it off with his sleeve. Eyes open but unseeing, Draco lay motionless as he stared blankly at the inky black canopy of his four-poster bed.

After what felt like an eternity, but may have only been a few minutes, Draco reached into the drawer of his night stand and closed his hand around the cold glass of the calming draught.

* * *

Theo groaned, low and whiny like a petulant child, before flopping back onto his stool.

Draco rolled his eyes. “What now?” He peered into their cauldron, which now housed a bubbling orange liquid and smelled of a rotting bog. “Oh,” he understood immediately, scrunching his nose.

“Malfoy, just how much leech juice did you put in? We just needed a dash! Bollocks, now we have to redo the whole thing.”

“No need to make a fuss, Nott. It’ll barely take anytime to redo,” Draco muttered.

“Such a rookie mistake, Malfoy. You’re usually better at potions than this. But I guess it can’t be helped with those nightmares messing with your head. You look like shite.”

Draco growled, but didn’t take the bait. He had been swerving away from mirrors these days, though he imagined that he looked like a walking corpse.

“You look like a walking corpse,” Theo affirmed rather conveniently. “Pale as a vampire. Eyes bloodshot to hell. Rail-thin, like a strong wind would blow you over. Hair looks a little greasy too.”

“I didn’t ask for your commentary, Nott,” Draco gritted out, crushing the second batch of leeches with more force than necessary for the little creatures.

“Why don’t you just take a Dreamless Sleep potion? Surely someone like you is quite experienced with making it.”

Sighing as he weighed out the leeches on the scale, Draco replied, “How do you think I survived the war with the Dark Lord under my roof? I couldn’t guarantee that I was occluding sufficiently in my sleep, so I had to take Dreamless Sleep nearly every night. Needless to say, that particular potion isn’t effective anymore.” 

A bright laugh came from a table in front of them, and both boys looked up to see Granger smiling and waving her hand for a high five. After a brief pause, Blaise reluctantly raised his arm and high-fived her back. Lifting up onto his tiptoes, Theo leaned forward and peeked into their cauldron. He whistled lowly.

“Brilliant acid green. The textbook definition of the Shrinking Solution,” Theo shook his head. “Should have partnered with Blaise, or better yet, Granger herself. Lucky Blaise, he’s so bloody handsome that he can even get Granger on his side.”

“Not you too. Why is everyone in this school so obsessed with her?” Scowling, Draco brusquely dumped the leech juice into their cauldron.

“Oi oi!” Theo jumped to his feet. “Don’t go ruining our cauldron a second time.” 

“I’m not an idiot, Nott. It was a dash of leech juice. I bloody measured it,” Draco calmly confirmed, though on the inside he was starting to feel anything but calm. All these sleepless nights had left his reservoir of patience as a shallow, dried-up pool.

“Maybe you should sit this one out,” Theo suggested while mincing a daisy root. “You’re no use when you’re brooding.” 

“I’m not brooding,” Draco snapped. Again, he _wasn’t_ brooding. Granger could befriend all the Slytherins she wanted. His all of 2 somewhat-acquaintance-friends could go join her bloody fan club too.

“She’s looking at you, you know.”

“What?”

Draco whipped his head towards Theo, though instantly regretted it when he saw Theo’s smug expression. Bollocks.

But he couldn’t help himself, and slid his gaze over to Granger, who was indeed looking at him. Once grey met brown however, Granger averted her eyes, instead taking keen interest in cleaning up her potions station.

Beside him, Theo chuckled. “Granger’s always looking at you. It’s hard to believe that you haven’t noticed,” he turned towards Draco with a lifted brow. “Something interesting going on there?”

Something warm and light fluttered through him, but Draco shuttered it away and crushed the feeling like a butterfly in his palm. He shook his head. “It’s nothing like what you’re insinuating. I’m Draco Malfoy, remember? Always to be suspected of anything with a whiff of evil. She’s likely just keeping tabs to report back to the Golden wonder-duo.”

The amusement slipped off of Theo’s face, and he returned to his daisy roots with a sigh. “Malfoy, if you only see yourself as a bad person, then that’s all you’re ever going to be.”

* * *

The books on the shelf were immaculate— not a single drop of blood. Not a single book cover creased. Not a single scratch on the polished wood floor.

There was not a single lick of evidence that he had been bloody and broken in this very spot just a few weeks ago.

Draco allowed a dry grin to twitch onto his lips as he walked away. Granger must have come running back to spruce it up after dumping him at the Hospital Wing— so it _was_ about the books.

It’s not like he was in the library because he was hoping to catch a glance of a certain someone from afar, no of course not. There was just a book he had to find pertaining to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration that would really solidify his essay. That, and Blaise and Theo were starting to get naggy about his newfound hermit lifestyle, as if they were much better themselves, and it wasn’t his fault that other people couldn’t understand the intrigue of ancient runes.

Unfortunately, even the world, or fate itself didn’t seem to believe him.

As he rounded the corner, he was greeted with Granger sitting alone at a table, papers and books chaotically strewn about like she was investigating a crime scene. She glanced up at the sound of his footsteps.

Both of them froze as they awkwardly absorbed the unobstructed view of each other. Draco already knew he looked like shite— pale-vampire-bloodshot-eyes-rail-thin-corpse— and all that, but Granger wasn’t faring much better either. Her brown mop of hair was a tousled mess, dark circles ringed her eyes, and her cheeks looked sunken, accentuating her ashen and sallow skin tone.

_Still pretty,_ his clearly addled mind still thought, and a part of him wanted to fix this strange version of sad-Granger and get her back to her usual lively and swotty self. 

And that was his cue to leave. Draco swiveled on his heel and marched towards the exit; he didn’t need that book on Gamp’s law that badly. After all, he could buy it from Flourish and Botts and have it shipped over. 

A hand closed around his wrist and jerked him backwards, and he soon found himself face to face with Granger. Oh, he should have predicted this. 

She narrowed her eyes and pouted. “I knew it, so you _are_ avoiding me.”

Draco snorted and put on his best sneer. “Why the hell would you think that? As if you’re significant enough for me to actively avoid.”

Granger didn’t flinch. “I haven’t seen you in 2 weeks.”

“Yeah? What of it? In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly chummy, Granger. Have you forgotten the last 7 years of our history? It’s not out of the ordinary if we don’t see each other.”

Her nostrils flared and she made a muffled noise. Draco could practically hear the calming mantra she was repeating in her head to not lash out at him. Not that he didn’t deserve it.

Finally, after a meditative sigh, Granger commented, “You don’t look good, Malfoy.”

“Ouch Granger, who knew that you’d be one to attack a man’s vanity.” Draco pressed a hand to his chest.

Granger rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. You don’t look _healthy_.”

“Neither do you.”

Her eyebrows knit together, and she crossed her arms over her stomach. “We’re not talking about me right now,” her voice dropped an octave and something like concern softened her face, “…you look like how you did in sixth year. Like you were physically here but…not _really_.”

Heat crawled up the back of his neck and he pressed his lips into a thin line. But he said nothing and waited for her to continue. 

“I’ve read reports that there are still some Death Eater factions that have been active. They’ve been trying to gain more manpower and monetary funds. Rumor is that they’re targeting wealthy, pureblood families,” Granger gulped, and he followed the motion of her bobbing throat. She nervously tucked a lock of hair behind her ears. “Malfoy…is this a repeat of sixth year? What sort of things have you gotten yourself wrapped up in?”

His heart curled into itself and dropped to the pit of his stomach, churning and dying in the acid.

Draco should have known. Hell, he _did_ know. He told Theo as such just a few hours ago. He was Draco Malfoy and he could never forget it. Draco Malfoy who was always going to be suspected of anything with a rice granule of Death Eater or dark arts or evil deeds.

How morbidly ironic. Even when he was already drowning, she found a way to make him sink deeper. A tiny logical part of his brain reminded him that Granger didn’t know, and would never know about his dreams. It was reasonable for her to believe he was an empty black soul. After all, he hadn’t done much to prove her wrong.

Granger had still been speaking, and he managed to hear the last of her words, “Don’t get involved in things that will jeopardize your probation, or it really will be Azkaban for you. No amount of money or Harry’s testimony can get you out this time. We can go to Professor McGonagall. Or...I don’t know, there are always more ways around bad situations then what it may initially seem like. I can…I can help you,” she tried to say bravely, but she had lost some of her steam as he stewed in silence, his glower never slipping off.

“You…can help me?” A wall in Draco’s mind cracked, a fissure starting from the top and spiderwebbing with a sickening crackle. He advanced towards her— she gasped and stumbled backwards, colliding against the table she had vacated— and he placed both of his arms beside her, caging her in. Fear flashed across her eyes, which had grown wide like a doe’s, and he could see his own shadowy silhouette reflected in them.

Draco lowered his head and whispered into the shell of her ear. “Why would you give two shites about me? Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater, isn’t that right?”

Granger shivered under him and her hot breath exhaled onto his neck, he could feel her every tremble as he pressed against her. Despite his anger and the circumstances, he couldn’t help but lean into her—she was warm and smelled quite nice, like ink and parchment with a hint of vanilla— and even if his mind was incensed, his body craved the reassurance that Granger was real and alive and not cold on his manor floor.

A harsh shove at his chest had him lurching backwards, and on instinct he reached for the table to steady himself. He managed to latch onto a piece of paper and tore it out of Granger’s pile.

Draco looked down at what was in his hand. He blinked. This was…

He stepped past Granger and pulled another piece of paper. His eyes slanted, grey eyes clouding like a storm.

“Don’t—” Granger started to say, but it was to deaf ears.

Paper after paper was yanked into his hands, until he upended her bulging portfolio and a waterfall of papers tumbled and splattered across the table like dead leaves. 

_Confusion Amidst Harry Potter’s Defense of Draco Malfoy – Bribery? Blackmail?_

_Wizarding World Upset: Youngest Death Eater Draco Malfoy Walks Free_

_Forgiveness Gone Too Far? Hogwarts to Allow Return of Death Eater Children_

_Lucius Malfoy Sentenced to Twenty Years in Azkaban, Narcissa Malfoy from Socialite to Shut-in_

_Inside the Malfoy Manor: Headquarters of the Greatest Evil, House of Tortured Souls_

Images of himself shuffled amongst the pages; he was washed out in pale grey, and his tall, gaunt frame didn’t help him look less like a villain. His parents and the Manor occasionally flickered into view as well, doused in the same stoic depression as himself.

His breathing came out in shallow breaths, and for some terrible pathetic reason, he could feel the pressure of tears pounding behind his eyes.

“What the fuck is this Granger?” He spat, his throat constricting as he struggled to swallow down a sob.

“Malfoy, it’s not what you think,” she protested, but shrunk under the sharpness of his glare and worried at her lip. At least she had the sense to look at least a little remorseful.

“Not enough that you won Granger? You wanted to collect all the evidence of it too? Frame up the evidence of me and my family’s suffering and hang it up in your room?”

“No! That’s not what I was doing.” Granger stamped her foot.

Draco laughed darkly, running his hands through his hair. “I don’t know why you’re bloody dancing around it. Don’t tell me snooping on my misery is just a simple _hobby_ of yours. Go ahead, tell it all to my face. Tell me that I was a bully that made your life a living hell for no damn reason and that I’ve barely begun to pay for it. Tell me that you hate me for being a slimy Death Eater and that you want me to be haunted by my choices. Tell me that I deserve every torture that comes my way for doing absolutely nothing during _your_ torture,” Draco’s voice cracked to a sob. Sweat drenched his entire upper body and his face shined with perspiration. He shook so hard that he released all the papers in his hands. They fell from his fingertips with a quiet flutter. 

Hot tears slipped down his face, and if he was in a different state of mind, he might have been more mortified that he was crying in front of Granger of all people.

“It’s not like you could ever believe that I could be haunted by the war just as much as you,” he said softer than he knew he could, his voice as fragile as glass.

Granger didn’t say a word, but her deep brown eyes shined with sadness and he absolutely hated it. Hated her. She took a tentative step and reached out for him. But as the tips of her fingers grazed his wrist, she pulled back. Her hand fell loosely to her side.

“You’re not involved with the Death Eaters,” she stated as a fact.

“Oh, looks like the brightest witch of her age earned her title,” Draco replied. With a hasty swipe of his sleeve over his eyes, he stalked out of that damn library.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Thank you for the comments from the previous chapter! It’s so exciting to see that the Dramione fandom is so active and friendly even after all this time.


	3. Boys versus monsters

* * *

_She has seen through him._ _Within his layers of stone walls and locked doors and winding mazes, something misaligned with the Dark Lord’s ambitions must have seeped through the cracks. (Fear? Remorse? Desperation? There are so many choices.)_

_Bellatrix’s gaze penetrates him like a predatory cat watching a caged mouse. She’s already won— so now she waits, unblinking, and carefully calculating how to devour her prey. Her black bugged eyes narrow on his face, which he has carefully schooled into perfect nonchalance, and he can feel the tethers of her mind probing his own, trying to pry the crack wider and shatter his mind._

_Suddenly, it stops. The feel of cold fingers ripping through his skull retracts, and his mind spins so much from the whiplash that he stumbles backwards. An eerie smile creeps up Bellatrix’s lips._

_“Draco, I didn’t realize that you were so well-acquainted with the mudblood,” Bellatrix chirps sweetly._

_“We are hardly acquainted,” Draco responds with a mask of cool confidence, “she’s just the filthy mudblood that’s always hanging off Potter’s side.” Aloof. Casual. These are the things he needs to be exuding. He keeps his eyes off of his aunt and stares blankly ahead at the stone column._

_“Oh?”_

_In that one word, Draco knows that he’s fallen into Bellatrix’s trap. His hands fist so tightly that his knuckles turn white, but he continues to keep his face painfully indifferent._

_Bellatrix steps to the side, fully revealing Hermione prone on the floor, motionless save for the subtle rise and fall of her chest._

_“Well Harry Potter,” she spits out his name like poison, “isn’t so high-and-mighty now, is he? You want to teach him a lesson, don’t you? Why not start with his revolting choice in companions?” Bellatrix absently twirls her wand in her hand, and motions for Draco to come closer._

_His chest seizes, panic surging through his mind and banging like a stampede of stallions against his walls. But his mother and father are looking at him. His aunt is looking at him. And if he doesn’t do anything, then someone more terrible will. He sees his own feet clumsily shuffle forward._

_“Potter has a scar on his head, doesn’t he?” Bellatrix begins causally, as if they were about to discuss the terribly drafty weather they’ve been having lately and not the imminent torture of his classmate._

_Draco doesn’t answer. His feet bump into something soft— he looks down and realizes that he’s nudged the side of Granger’s stomach. Acid churns in his stomach and he struggles to remain impassive— fortify, aloof, casual— he reminds himself. Her wrists are twisted in impossible angles, blood flowing from the corners of her mouth. The only consolation is that she appears unconscious, a small reprieve from her pain. Draco hides these thoughts as soon as they wriggle towards the surface, keeping his eyes dull and empty. He backs off a few inches from Granger, and turns his head to regard his aunt with a neutral gaze._

_Unsurprisingly, Bellatrix is already watching— no, gauging for the appropriate reactions. She circles the pair of them like a vulture does to a dead corpse._

_“So, Draco my dear. I had this brilliant thought. Why don’t we give a scar to the mudblood here so Potter and his cronies can match, hm?”_

_“On the forehead?” Draco asks._

_Bellatrix shakes her head, her wild curls flailing. “No dear, that wouldn’t be enough space. But there will be just enough here...” She taps at her wrist, and gestures towards Hermione’s sleeve. “To write a reminder of what the girl is. This goes without saying of course, but make it a permanent curse, won’t you? It wouldn’t do for the girl to have delusions that she’s anything but a mudblood.”_

_Draco cringes, but at his aunt’s expectant look, he falls to his knees and sinks obediently onto the cold floor. Mudblood._

_How many times had he taunted her with that slur from his own mouth? How many jeers had he made about her impure blood? How much rhetoric had he spewed about the sanctity of pureblood society? He had felt so powerful throwing the word in her face— because as long as her blood was muggle, he would always have supremacy over her even when he lost in brains, friends, and happiness._

_But now, faced with the opportunity to lord his superiority, he finds himself wondering what the fuck the fuss is all about. Pureblood and mudblood is just…blood. Blood is blood, and blood is fucking red._

_“Just do it. It’s fine.”_

_His eyes immediately dart to her pallid face. Granger’s eyes are still closed, but she is very subtly whispering words to him._

_“You’ll be hurt if you don’t fulfill your task, won’t you? So, I’m telling you to just do it,” she mutters hoarsely._

_Is Hermione Granger telling him to cut a horrible slur on her so he wouldn’t need to get hurt? What is this fucked up irony? If it wouldn’t have gotten him killed, Draco would have roared with humorless laughter._

_“Well Draco? Is there a problem?” Bellatrix cuts in icily, “There’s no need to stare at the girl all night. Don’t make me think that you fancy the bint.”_

_“Draco,” Hermione grit out his name without opening her mouth. “Carve that word onto my wrist already. Stop dawdling.”_

_Even in this state, of course Granger is still incredibly bossy._

_His hand trembles as he reluctantly moves toward the smooth expanse of her wrist, his wand hot and sweaty in his palm. As the tip of his wand pricks her skin, she sucks air through her teeth, but swallows down her scream._

_“Draco! Use more force,” Bellatrix bellows from above, stomping over to them. She whips out her wand and slashes Hermione’s wrist with the sharp line of the ‘M’— Hermione chokes out a garbled breath and convulses her upper body._

_“Stop! I’ll do it,” Draco pushes Bellatrix out of the way and inserts himself back at Hermione’s side. He can feel his aunt’s indignation looming over him so he defends, “Please don’t retract this honor that you’ve given me. I’ve always wanted to put this mudblood in her place,” he says calmly, although his heart squirms with every word._

_In a palpably thick silence, Draco finishes carving the rest of Hermione’s scar. She doesn’t emit another scream, barely moves a muscle. As he rounds out of the curve of the ‘D,’ Draco chances a look at Hermione and she gives him a single nod, mouthing ‘it’s fine,’ and trying in vain to blink the tears from her eyes._

_He glares at his handiwork on her wrist— MUDBLOOD, the lines thin and jagged, blood streaming down in rivulets and smearing on the letters._

_No. No, it really isn’t fucking fine._

* * *

Draco pressed the heel of his palm into his eyes, clutching at his scalp with his fingers.

How many times could his mind twist his memories over and over again, concocting such real situations that he could no longer discern the truth from the lie?

Is this how he’s going to live the rest of his life? He can’t get through one single night without remembering how pathetic he is. How much he hates himself.

Draco threw his sheets to the floor and clambered to his feet. Roughly stuffing his feet into a pair of shoes, but forgoing changing out of his pajamas, Draco set a course for the seventh floor.

* * *

Seventh floor. Left corridor. Across from the ridiculous tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy teaching trolls ballet. Walk three times back and forth.

How many times had he made this trek in sixth year? His footsteps were practically embedded in this stretch of space. Strangely enough, even if it was during the most horrible period of his life, the familiarity calmed his worn nerves.

Like a trick of the light, the hidden door to the Room of Requirement shimmered into view and he wasted no time entering. As the heavy door swung behind him and the lock quietly clicked into place, the first feeling that rippled through Draco was confusion.

Dark and dank like a cave, the room’s sole light came from a flickering fireplace at the end of the hall. It smelled musty, like it had been a very long time since anyone had stepped foot in it, and a thin layer of dust coated the stained-glass windows. Draco sneezed, and the sound bounced off the high ceilings and stone arches, echoing throughout the empty room. Being alone in this place was…creepy.

Something creaked— the sound reverberating from the floor to Draco’s bones— and he instinctively reached for his wand and pointed it at nothing, waving it back and forth in front of him as he stayed on guard. Whatever it was creaked again, and he darted his eyes to his left to see a giant hunk of metal edging towards him. A large circle was painted on its chest, clearly some sort of bullseye target, and it was holding a wand in one of its rusted hands.

The head was simply a skull with large sunken eyes and vertical slits for teeth. It was…a Death Eater mask on a training dummy?

Draco ran a hand through his hair and barked out a laugh, then dropped to his knees and hung his head. He was in the bloody headquarters of Dumbledore’s Army. Oh, what his fifth-year self would have given to find this place and turn in Potter and his do-gooder followers to that awful pink-toad lady.

He had requested for a place where he could find peace—but of course, because his life was something in between a joke and a tragedy— the Room of Requirement gave him the place that was the start of Harry-bleeding-Potter becoming a war hero.

Though slow, the Death Eater dummy was steadily inching towards him, the circular base screeching like sandpaper against the floor. 

Draco raised his head and glared at the thing. “ _Expelliarmus,_ ” he uttered, and the wand flew out of the dummy’s bony fingers and clattered to the floor.

Training dummy or not, Draco wasn’t taking his chances with anything holding a weapon.

But like an alarm that had been dialed up, the creaking noises only intensified and now vibrated the floor. Draco lurched onto his feet and swiveled around— his eyes landed on a second Death Eater training dummy. His eyebrows drew together. That…wasn’t there before, was it? No matter.

“ _Expelliarmus_ ,” he casted again. Like the first time, he expertly hit the mark and the wand flew out of the dummy’s hands.

He paused. Something wasn’t right. Right on cue, from his peripheral vision he saw another shuffling dummy that definitely wasn’t there before. Maybe it was the spell that he was using.

“ _Petrificus Totalus,_ ” he tried the body-bind curse. The dummy froze in place. Good, that seemed to work.

Draco breathed out a sigh he didn’t realize he was holding. That was enough of that, he needed to get out of this creepy room. Draco turned towards the exit, but was met with not only the pleasant surprise that the exit had vanished, but also the sight of _three_ new Death Eater dummies closing in on him.

What the fuck was going on? They were multiplying every time he so much as turned his back. Wand clutched tightly in his hand, Draco unleashed a slew of curses and hexes in a haphazard frenzy. But his attempts were like a drop of water against a roaring fire, and as he grew more frenetic with his casting, the less his spells could delay the dummies’ advancement.

Draco clenched both his hands into fists, nervously rolling his wand around his index finger and thumb. His eyes darted from dummy to dummy, mentally counting the odds against him while avoiding the soulless pits of their eye sockets. They haven’t attacked him yet, but there must have been at least 20 now with more materializing out of the shadows. The room echoed with the haunting screeching of their movements, like nails scraping down glass, and the floor vibrated steadily like an earthquake, rattling Draco from the soles of his feet to the base of his skull.

Why the fuck couldn’t he catch a break? Yes, he had been a right arsehole in his earlier days of Hogwarts and a malicious bully, and yes, he had been a Death Eater and committed dark sins against innocent people. But what was he supposed to do? He had been a fucking 16 year-old boy and it was either he complied with the monster in his manor, or submitted himself and his family to torture. Then if they were lucky, the torture would be swiftly followed by being fileted alive.

Why was he always so powerless? So helpless? He had never been able to protect a single thing in his life. 

Draco screwed his eyes shut and screamed, the power roaring from deep within his stomach and expelling all the air in his lungs in a rush of rage. His voice was raw and jagged amidst the cacophony of scraping wood, and he screamed over and over again until he was gulping for breath and cherry-red in the face. Like a festering wound, hot anger pulsed through him and he channeled all of it into his magic, blasting dummy after dummy with every curse and hex he had ever learned.

But life wasn’t fair, and apparently never wanted to give Draco Malfoy a break. Despite his barrage of magic, there were still too many Death Eater dummies to count, and they circled Draco like sharks would to fresh blood.

Fine.

Forget it.

Draco drifted to the floor like a limp doll and sat down, hunching forward onto his knees and cradling his head. What a way to go— by a horde of animated Death Eater training dummies after a harrowing nightmare about Hermione Granger’s torture.

Ah, Hermione Granger.

Three nightmares now— one a real memory and two conjured from his twisted psyche. How ironic, that he seemed to have a subconscious fixation on her while in the real world he couldn’t bear to face her.

Fragments from his most recent dream filtered back to him and he examined his wand with a shaking hand. Hawthorn, brown with a black handle, and reasonably springy. This very wand could perform wonders of magic, but he had used it like a cheap knife to slice scars into her warm flesh. It was a dream, but if a few things had just been a little different…what if Bellatrix had noticed the flash of fear in his eyes when Granger was dragged into his drawing room and pinned torturing her onto him, would the dream have become reality?

Would he have been able to stand up against his aunt and refuse her? Would he have been able to protect Granger from a fate she didn’t deserve?

Or…would he have tortured Granger because he was too much of a bloody coward to go against the choices that were made for him? Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater.

Merlin, she had good reason to have no faith in him, he didn’t even have faith in himself. He wanted to be on the right side, he really did, but after spending so much time struggling in the dark, Draco didn’t know how to live in anywhere else.

“What do you want from me? What do you want me to do? I don’t know. I don’t know a lot of things,” he murmured to himself, rocking back and forth as he gripped his hair. His voice shook with every syllable, nose congested and cheeks streaked with tears as he silently cried. “But I do know some things…I know that I never wanted to be a Death Eater. I know that I never wanted to give you that mudblood scar. I know that the feeling is mutual, you may never believe me, but I don’t care for your pain and suffering either.”

Nothing. A beat of no changes. And then…

The floor rumbled underneath Draco, rattling each and every bone in his body. The scraping sounds of Death Eater dummies abruptly stopped and was replaced by the sound of crumbling walls, and a soothing thrum of magic enveloped him like a silent blanket of snow. And then like a candle that had been snuffed out by a swift gust of wind, it all stopped.

Tentatively, Draco lifted his head. His jaw dropped.

No longer was he on the floor of some dusty training room, but he was leaning against a squashy red arm chair. A fire crackled in front of him, illuminating the room with a cozy orange glow and warming his aching body. He looked down, he was seated on a plush red rug with gold trim and intricate embroidery. Draco scrambled up to his feet and observed the print of a roaring lion on its hind legs.

Something shuffled behind him, and he whirled around to come face to face with a fluffy orange cat. Or kneazle? It stared at him with a disquietingly intense stare, swishing its bushy tail languidly back and forth. What was that cat doing here?

Draco turned around in one circle— the realization hit him like a sack of bricks. This was his safe house in France, decked out completely in Gryffindor décor. A steaming pot of tea caught his eye, and he walked towards it to see that it was placed next to a worn copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ and a muggle paperback book that he didn’t recognize. No, it wasn’t just decked out completely in Gryffindor décor, it was personally decorated to suit what he imagined as _Hermione’s_ preferences. 

After years and years of repressing all of his thoughts, he let himself think about Granger. He remembered the first time he saw her— bushy haired with the ends frizzy like a broomstick and buck teeth like a beaver, but her eyes were so deeply intelligent and expressive, flashing her every emotion like an open book. And when she spoke, she was so brilliant, much smarter than any 11 year-old should have been. After believing that muggle-borns were uncouth simpletons raised like trolls, here was this quirky girl that slashed through his Pureblood private education with her encyclopedic brain. Before she befriended Potter and Weasley, she was alone and outcasted for the first few months of school and did all these things to fit in, but only came off as an annoying swot.

But Draco Malfoy, most popular 11 year-old boy in school, couldn’t help but watch this strange miserable pariah. 

He flipped through more images of their time together. She had punched him straight in the face in third year. Never in his life would he have thought a woman would have no qualms about smashing his patrician nose. She had glided into the Yule Ball like a royal princess, so breathtakingly beautiful that any of his insults would have been a tacky lie. (A quiet voice in his mind noted that it would have been nice if she had saved a dance for him, and even nicer if he could have accepted without feeling the heat from his father.)

He plopped into the red arm chair, feeling himself melt into the velvet cushions, and didn’t even have the strength to consider how strange this situation had become or scoff at the hideous explosion of red and gold. With surprising grace considering its fluff, the cat or kneazle clambered onto Draco’s chair and curled itself into his lap. Draco absently stroked its head until the beast let out a low humming purr. Draco’s eyes fluttered closed. It felt… nice thinking about Granger and simpler times, like she was sunlight clearing the fog in his brain. He hadn’t felt this at peace for a very long time, and was quickly swallowed by dreamless sleep.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I knowww that Draco has been having some rough days, but it won't be all grey skies I promise. I'm excited to move forward with the next few chapters which feature more Hermione.
> 
> Stay safe and healthy everyone <3


	4. Ain't no rest for the wicked

* * *

Today was going to be a good and peaceful day. Although there was not a single drop of Seer blood in the Malfoy family line, he somehow knew that this fact would be true. 

Eleven hours of sleep did wonders to the soul. Sure, Draco woke up with a stiff crick in his neck and lower back pain from sleeping upright, but it was a worthy price to pay for a full recharge of sleep. 

After a long hot shower, a sorely-overdue shave on his chin and upper lip, and a fresh set of crisp robes, Draco was starting to feel more human and less corpse. Hell, might as well top it off. Draco rummaged through his trunk and pulled out a round tub of Sleekeazy’s— gone were the days where he slicked his hair completely back, but just a dab at the front to get the fringe out of his eyes couldn’t hurt.

Good...but there was still more that could be done. So, for the first time in 2 weeks, Draco graced the Great Hall with his presence at the normal lunch hour. He plopped down at his usual seat across from Blaise, and casually ignored how both Blaise and Theo jolted at his appearance, nearly knocking over their pumpkin juices. 

“Afternoon gentlemen,” Draco greeted, reaching for a piping hot ham and cheese sandwich. Perfect, a completely plain lunch for this good and peaceful day. He was going to lay low, go through some normal routine things, and everything would be fine.

“You’re looking…alive,” Blaise observed.

“Yeah? Brilliant, just the look I was going for,” Draco answered with a small twitch of his lips.

Theo’s eyebrows rose towards his hairline. “Malfoy, is that your mouth attempting to smile? Is it really you?”

“Who else could it be? Don’t think impersonating Draco Malfoy is very high on the list these days.” Draco snorted, “And since when did you start sitting with us, Nott? I could have sworn from the past 7 years that you only loosely tolerated me, only using me as necessary for my potion's expertise.”

Theo shrugged, sparing an amused smirk. “Dunno. If there’s one positive thing from this bloody war, it’s that you’re less of an insufferable ‘my-father-will-hear-about-this’ prat. Your father must have gone mad with all the schoolyard rubbish he had to hear about. Only took you until eighth year to stop your incessant whining.”

Blaise coughed, some pumpkin juice messily spilling from his lips as he bit the inside of his cheek. Even with juice dripping down his chin, he somehow managed to continue looking cool and composed.

Draco rolled his eyes, but nonetheless his cheeks pinkened.

“Oh sod off Nott…” Draco muttered, then returned his attention to the ham and cheese sandwich suspended in front of his salivating mouth. It was an utterly uneventful sandwich with 3 ingredients, but this cheap deli meat with oozing cheese was practically a delicacy amongst all the scraps he had been surviving on. Right. Still on track for a good and peaceful day.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that…” Blaise commented, as apparently Draco had taken up a habit of thinking out loud.

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, because of her.”

He thought to ask Blaise to elaborate, but it would have been a waste of his breath as he already knew who ‘her’ was. Before Draco had the chance to groan, he heard the tell-tale creak of the bench as someone unceremoniously dropped down beside him.

“Hi Malfoy,” the self-imposed guest of the Slytherin table stiffly addressed, like she was in detention and only acknowledging the proctoring professor to be polite.

Draco rubbed at the crease forming on the bridge of his nose. Taking this as his reply, Granger glanced over the rest of the table and landed her eyes on Blaise.

“Hi Blaise,” she said with far more warmth than ‘Malfoy’ had ever been swathed in. 

“Hi Hermione,” Blaise replied back, almost nicely.

What was this? A handful of potions classes and now they were on first name basis? After nearly a decade of knowing her, Draco still couldn’t acknowledge her as Hermione in his _head._

Granger smiled back at Blaise, the happiness reaching all the way to her pretty brown eyes. Petty jealousy bristled though him and he immediately clamped it shut under a shield. She shifted her attention onto Theo next and twisted her lips in thought.

Theo opened his mouth to speak, but Granger beat him to it, “Theodore Nott, I presume?”

“…Yes, how did you know?” Theo asked.

“Nott, why wouldn’t I know your name? We’ve only been going to the same school since we were 11,” Granger responded matter-of-factly, though she shot him a timid smile as well.

The petty jealousy thumped like a rabbit’s foot against his occlumency shield. Draco tugged against his collar, popping open the first button and shaking in air circulation. Merlin’s beard, what was he getting so worked up about? So what if Granger was already all-smiles with Theo after all of 30 seconds? It’s not like they were on first-name basis yet—

“Call me Theo please. Being called Nott makes me feel like my father,” Theo said smoothly.

“Oh, alright then,” Granger’s voice lilted in surprise. “Please call me Hermione then.”

Theo’s face lit up like a boy who had just gotten a crup puppy for Christmas, but Draco didn’t miss the sly grin and triumphant look that was scrupulously directed towards himself.

In the span of a little over 2 weeks, both Blaise and Theo had somehow managed to cross the threshold that Draco could only dream of breaching. Incredible.

Granger cleared her throat, shifting her weight and creaking the bench. “Um…Blaise, Theo, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to speak with Malfoy alone, if that’s okay.”

With the spotlight back on him, Draco straightened back to himself. “Granger, can this impending lecture wait until later? I was having a moment with this ham and cheese sandwich, but now that it’s been idly in my hands since the beginning of the scene the cheese has begun to curdle.”

“Oh how tragic, but I’m sure you’ll find a way to survive,” Granger responded blandly, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “And _no_ it can’t wait until later. Who knows how long you’ll bury yourself in your ferret hole again.”

“And we’ll see ourselves out,” Theo announced, “wouldn’t want to intrude on this thinly-veiled flirting from 7 years of tension.” He and Blaise swiftly stood up and slung their bags over their shoulders.

Draco gawked, and based on Theo’s widening simper, guessed that Hermione looked very much the same. They simultaneously sputtered.

“How did you come up with such a ludicrous—”

“We are _not…_ have you gone mad?”

But their protests were to deaf ears as Theo and Blaise sauntered away, Theo raising his arm half-way in a lazy dismissal. The nerve of that git.

He was left alone with Granger, and the fact settled uneasily in the pit of his stomach. While the Hermione of his dreams was the source of both his trauma and peace, the Granger of his reality was last seen digging up dirt on his family and accusing him of Death Eater activity. To reconcile the two was confusing to say the least. 

“Honestly…” Granger muttered, and Draco didn’t need to look to know that she had turned her nose up. “Charming new crew you have there, Malfoy. At least Blaise and Theo know how to read, so that’s an upgrade. Though I do question Theo’s sanity for suggesting that the pair of us could be… _together,_ ” she emphasized, visibly shuddering.

Draco frowned, and Gods, he shouldn’t have been miffed because he was thinking the same thing, right? But did she have to talk about him like he was a Flobberworm that she had stepped on and was wiping the guts off her boot? He had even cleaned up today, and he was certainly more handsome than a plump wriggling worm.

“And what, pray tell, do you imagine it would be like if we were together?” Draco couldn’t help asking. Ever easily riled, it was the character flaw he would never grow out of.

Granger blinked, taken aback by the turn the conversation was taking. Nevertheless, she could never give an answer without a thorough and thoughtful analysis, and gnawed on her bottom lip as she considered his question. “Well first off, we’d argue constantly. I’d imagine that we’d bicker about every silly little thing from what to eat for breakfast to what color to paint the walls.”

“In what world does a slice of unbuttered plain toast constitute as breakfast? And can you imagine a house painted in Slytherin green and Gryffindor red? It’d be bloody Christmas every day.”

Something like a giggle escaped out of Granger’s lips, but she brought a hand to her mouth to cough, and smothered it. 

“And then there’s the matter of our rather…different social circles. Can you imagine yourself going on double dates with Harry and Ginny or going to Sunday brunch at the Burrow with the Weasleys?”

Draco blanched, his face screwing up in distaste. “Fair point,” he conceded.

“And of course, the most obvious reason.” Granger hesitated for a split second, but then placed her arm flat on the table and gingerly rolled up her sleeves. “I’m a…muggleborn, as you have so kindly reminded me all of my life.”

Draco’s breath hitched, the sandwich slipping from his hands. He stared at the scars, burgundy red now instead of the bright vermillion in his dreams, as they cut across her forearm in thin jagged lines. _Mudblood._

Like he was walking towards the edge of a cliff, he cautiously leaned in closer. No, he didn’t write his ‘D’s like that. It couldn’t have been his handiwork, he reminded himself.

Swallowing thickly, Draco managed to choke out, “Why do you still have that?”

Granger looked down, rotating on her elbow so the words shifted in the light. “It’s not your average scar, it’s been cursed to be permanent.”

“Surely you could use a glamor charm, couldn’t you?”

She shrugged. “I could. But in the end, it’s just a word. Mud and blood by themselves are perfectly average words. There’s only meaning attached to the combination of them because we let there be.”

“Don’t call yourself that,” Draco snapped; he jerked his head to glare at her. Granger jumped at the sudden vitriol in his tone and regarded him strangely, perplexed by his vehement reaction.

She huffed, blowing a loose curl out of her eyes. She drew her arm back in and folded it across her stomach, away from his view. “It’s my body and my scar Malfoy, I don’t get why you’re getting so worked up over it.”

“Because despicable people who do despicable things use that word. Why the hell would you keep the memory of that night on your skin?” Draco said darkly. His hands clamped into fists and they bored down into the wooden table like he was trying to drill a hole with simply the pressure of his hands. 

“But…you called me mudblood all the time,” Granger countered softly, like he needed the reminder.

“I know,” he affirmed.

A hard frown pulled on Granger’s lips, but before she could say anything, they were interrupted by a whirlwind of red.

“Hermione? What are you doing at the Slytherin table? And with _Malfoy_ of all gits,” the Weasley announced loudly. Several heads swiveled around to watch the scene unfold. Great, a lack of tact must have been in the Weasley gene pool.

“It’s fine Ginny,” Granger said in a clipped tone. “We were just talking. Go ahead to our table and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

More eyes turned towards them and the whispers edged louder and louder. The target on Draco’s back was like a _lumos_ in a cave, and Granger’s questionable choice of company with a Death Eater was no doubt being discussed. Granger for her part, paid no heed to the schoolyard gossip and kept her attention honed in on the blond Slytherin before her. Draco however, was not looking for another beating in the bloody library. 

“Actually, we’re done here. I can hear your update on what dark magic that you think me or my family have been dabbling in another day. And by another day, I mean fucking never.”

Granger pressed her lips together and had the audacity to look hurt. “Malfoy that’s not what I came over here to do—"

Draco scoffed, sliding out of the bench as quickly as he could and shouldered his bookbag. He ignored her calling out his name, and also ignored her stumbling out of her seat to catch up to him. Good and peaceful day his arse. There was not a single drop of Seer blood in the Malfoy family, and today proved that to be especially true.

As long as Granger was in his life, he would never have a good and peaceful day _or_ night. If she could just stop infiltrating both his dreams and reality, maybe he could breathe long enough to figure out how to deal with the shite in his head. Draco sighed and massaged his temples as he sensed the beginning of a headache.

Maybe he could catch a break tomorrow.

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

Tomorrow had arrived, and he most certainly would not be catching a break.

This was because yesterday’s tomorrow, also known as today, was September 19th, or better known as Hermione Granger’s birthday by everyone in bloody Hogwarts. Wait no, everyone in the bloody Wizarding world. Fuck— let’s just cover all the bases and say the _entire_ bloody world.

Draco closed his eyes, his head thumping against the tree trunk. The Slytherin common room, which had been glossed over with a grey sheen as many of its student’s parents were implicated in the war, had been injected with energy as everyone prattled on about Granger’s birthday party. Apparently, it was an open invite— of course Granger would be all about righteous inclusivity, “two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right” and whatnot.

Oh, but that was just the beginning. During breakfast, a swarm of owls had squeezed their way into the Great Hall and flocked over to the Gryffindor table with variously sized parcels in their claws. He swore that he had even seen aunt Andromeda’s owl— brilliant, even his own family liked Granger more than him.

In an attempt for some peace and quiet, Draco had scaled the sturdy oak tree in front of the Black Lake and settled in for some light reading. And of course, because his luck had been going so swimmingly over the last few days, within a matter of minutes, Granger and a gaggle of her friends and/or admirers had gathered at the line of trees across from him. Close enough for them to be in his line of vision, but not enough for him to hear distinct words in their conversations.

Fireworks crackled above Granger’s group, pops of red and gold with the occasional streak of silver, blue, and even green.

“Happy birthday Hermione!” The voice of the one of the Weasley twins cheerily blared though the grounds, followed by a rushed announcement of, “ _Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes— 25% off select merchandise this weekend in honor of our Golden girl!_ ” Rather Slytherin to have a birthday present and marketing ploy all wrapped into one— he would never admit it even if a wand was pressed against his throat, but he had somewhat liked the Weasley twins…it was sincerely a pity that the other one had become a causality. 

When the fireworks tapered off and all that was left were clouds of ash lingering in the air, against his better judgment, Draco watched Granger. She beamed ear-to-ear, pleased by her gift despite the blatant advertising plug, but the smile immediately dissipated as Cormac McLaggen thumped her on the back and slung his arm around her shoulder.

Draco scoffed. If Draco and Hermione could be united by one thing, it was the mutual disgust for McLaggen. The git was an intolerable idiot who couldn’t take a hint even if it was highlighted in flaming red and thrust against the boy’s empty skull. Thank god that Granger pried off McLaggen’s hand and slinked away to join her friends for a game of Exploding Snap, a forced smile ready on her face. Although the day revolved around her and she had received a towering pile of gifts, Granger looked…uncomfortable. As if she didn’t know what to do with all this fanfare over an ordinary balmy autumn day, but didn’t have the heart to disappoint all these people so excited for it.

Averting his gaze, Draco returned to his book on ancient runes. That was enough pointless observation. Now he was going to ignore her and have a nice, solitary afternoon. This was the best reading spot in the castle grounds (he would know since he ran through all of it), with the optimal amount of sunlight beaming onto his book and just enough of a breeze to rifle through his loose robes, and he wasn’t going to lose this to Granger too.

A gale of wind rustled the branches above him, bringing with it the smell of pond scum and damp earth, and fading orange leaves cascaded past him. The wind blew at the edge of his sleeve, and he unconsciously moved to tug it back into place. He paused at the curled snake that had peeked out of his sleeve, skimming his finger over the raised bump of skin. The ebony mark had faded to a burgundy red, eerily similar to the muted shade of Granger’s scar.

Last night the nightmare that had visited him had been relatively mild, in the sense that no one had been viciously murdered. He had been hiding in his quarters, writhing from the Dark Mark that had been newly imprinted on his skin and thrashing like a man with his organs set on fire. The Dark Mark, black and bubbling, was seared onto his alabaster wrist, and he swore that the scar was _talking_ to him, brushing whispers into his mind like the wispy threads of a spiderweb.

_It is an honor to serve the Dark Lord._

_You are very fortunate to be under his wing at such a tender young age._

_Draco…you have made the right choice._

Draco gasped, pulling himself out of the flashback and erecting walls to lock the memory in its box. He covered his Dark Mark with his palm, as if expecting burning pain to flare up as the Dark Lord summoned him. But nothing happened. The Dark Lord was dead, and this mark was just a mass of ugly scar tissue.

Jolts of vibration shuddered through the branch he was sitting on, followed by thudding sounds reverberating up to the leaves. His eyes flickered downwards to a Slytherin boy fruitlessly kicking against the tree. A nasty insult leapt to the tip of Draco’s tongue, but he held himself back with a thin thread of self-restraint. If this twit had any sense, then he’d soon realize that his foot would never win against a tree and would kindly sod off without any intervention.

“Has everyone in this school gone completely mental? Since when did we celebrate Hermione Granger’s birthday like she was the bloody Queen of England?” The boy complained, punctuating his statement with another kick. “She’s no one but a dirty mudblood.”

That word again. Irritation curled up from the base of Draco’s spine into the tension of his shoulders. Draco looked down, narrowing his eyes. Although the boy’s gruff voice and combed brown hair was familiar, a name didn’t come to mind.

“She doesn’t know how lucky she is that her kind managed to scrape by. Everyone thinks she’s so brilliant, but if the Dark Lord had reigned, Granger would be begging on her hands and knees for mercy. What has the Wizarding world come to with all these filthy mudbloods diluting generations of pureblood lineage? Mudbloods have no place here. The Wizarding world has become so lax with its standards—how can Mudblood Granger be treated like royalty whereas pureblood Slytherins are kicked to the dirt?”

“Shut the fuck up,” the words shot out of his mouth like sharpened icicles. Draco widened his eyes minutely, surprised at his own cold anger. 

The Slytherin boy looked up, shock coloring his face, but it was quickly replaced by a sneer.

“If it isn’t Draco Malfoy…looks like snakes can hide in trees as well.” The boy stared unblinkingly at Draco, and two burly cronies that Draco hadn’t noticed before also stepped into view. “What seems to be the problem?”

In one fluid motion, Draco jumped down from the tree branch and landed elegantly on the balls of his feet. He tucked his book into his robes and straightened to his full height, subtly towering over the other boy, who up close he vaguely recognized was a sixth year. 

“Don’t call her that word,” Draco said, the underlying threat calmly interwoven in his words.

The boy raised both eyebrows and took a step forward. “What word? Mudblood?”

Draco clenched his jaw, his molars grinding together. “Yes. Don’t fucking call her that.”

“Oh? And why the hell not? If I recall correctly, _you_ were the one who called her mudblood more than anyone else. In fact, you were the one that first painted the target on her back,” the boy responded back. He lifted his chin, as if challenging Draco to refute his point.

“I know,” Draco acknowledged, before slipping on a dark smile. “But do you _really_ want to emulate me?”

Cruel laughter filled the air, and the boy gestured backwards at his lackeys to laugh as well. “Fuck no. You’re so pathetic that even _Hufflepuffs_ are beating you up. You spend most of your days hiding like the coward you are, now that your father isn’t here to protect you anymore.”

Draco balled his fists so tightly that his nails etched red crescents into his palms. He had to wrangle all his self-restraint to not scream and hex the whole lot of them. Probation, he reminded himself, willing the consequence of Azkaban to the forefront of his mind.

The Slytherin boy suddenly sobered up— the cool mask of hatred dispelling any trace of amusement. He stepped forward mere inches from Draco’s face. “You don’t even know who I am, do you?”

Draco stared. “Am I supposed to remember you?”

“Then I suppose as a well-bred pureblood, I’ll give you the courtesy of a reminder. My name is Darius Berrow, and I used to fucking idolize you,” Darius stated, brown eyes glinting with a hatred so fierce that Draco unconsciously took half a step back.

“You ran the Slytherin house. One utter of the Malfoy name and you would have everyone’s respect. People feared you, people followed you. You were the only one who could go up against saint Harry Potter and his sodding hero complex. Everyone expected Slytherins to be the villains anyways. What 11-year old boy wants to be the labeled as the villain who's always destined to lose to the hero? But you accepted what we were branded as and wore it proudly. You were a symbol of Slytherin power and superiority. But now…” Darius sucked in a breath, then spat onto Draco’s dragonhide boots. “I’m disgusted from even looking at you. You know what Draco? From the bottom of my heart, I hate you.”

Every muscle in Draco’s body tensed, the adrenaline coursing through him like fire on a festering wound.

The furrows in Darius’s brow deepened, his lips twitching into a grim smile. “I hate you. I hate you,” he repeated, “and I’m certainly not the only one. You walked between the lines of both sides and somehow managed to fuck it up everywhere. It’s nearly a well-known fact that you were an ambivalent Death Eater, barely able to carry out your tasks and crying on the sidelines. Rumor has it that Potter even turned up at your home and you couldn’t even identify him— the golden opportunity had literally shown up on your doorstep and you let it slip through your fingers. On the other side, you are the traitor who lead Death Eater murderers into a school for children. The shepherd who brought wolves to the sheep. You are the one who unlocked the gate to Dumbledore’s death. These are facts, and no matter what amendments you make, you will always be suspected by every side for the rest of your life. So, congratulations Draco, you’ve managed to get everyone in the world to hate you at the bright age of 17.”

Darius ended with a slow clap, gaze never leaving Draco. His demeanor was calm, even as his eyes burned into Draco like black ice.

Draco didn’t move an inch. After a silence so tense that the castle grounds seemed to have stalled all noise, Draco finally spoke, “For someone who hates me so much, you seem to know quite a bit about my life. And if you hate my life so much, then it should be clear the reason why you don’t call her a mudblood.”

Darius scoffed, carding his hands through his hair and messing up the neat locks. “Really? After everything that I’ve said, you’re still fucking on that.”

As if he hadn’t been interrupted, Draco continued, “It starts with mudblood. Saying mudblood every day. Saying mudblood so often and without restraint that it becomes a fact. It becomes as casual as sipping water. It’s all fun and games in school, but when you get out there in the real world, the people who call others mudblood aren’t just schoolyard bullies. They’re cold-blooded murderers. Psychopaths. And you quickly realize that you wish you hadn’t talked yourself up with your fat mouth when you were really just a stupid and naïve kid.” Draco inhaled deeply, the muscles in his arms drawn taut. “Do you understand what war is? Have you ever seen a man tortured for so long and so relentlessly that blood poured out of his ears? Have you ever had to walk around pieces of singed flesh that have been burned into your floors? Have you ever seen a person murdered in your very own dining room, then left to hang there until the stench of their rotting flesh caused your mother to faint? Have you ever walked the halls of your house in complete paranoia over which monster would break into your mind next?”

Leaning over Darius, Draco lowered his head until his lips were level with the shell of the sixth year’s ear. “You don’t understand, do you? How could you? So kindly fuck off with your smart little mouth. From the bottom of my heart, if you ever call Hermione a mudblood again, I will personally tear out your tongue and grind your teeth into white dust.” 

A beat of silence. Then another.

Then, with the reflexes that only seekers could have honed from years of dodging bludgers, Draco ducked his head just in time to hear the _whoosh_ from a swinging fist barely grazing his ear.

Fucking finally. A feral grin ripped across Draco’s face and he reared back his fist and rammed it against Darius’s stomach. A strangled sound—something between a cry and a gurgle—wound its way out of Darius’s throat. Draco’s knuckles connected satisfyingly against a rib, and Draco ground his fist in as he heard the sickening crack of bone.

But the advantage was short lived, as Darius slammed his elbow between Draco’s shoulder blades and sent him careening facedown into the ground and choking on a mouthful of dirt. Darius wasted no time in striking the side of his head with a merciless kick, and Draco’s vision exploded into white fireworks in his eyes. He allowed himself one sticky cough of blood before he leaned into his fighting instinct and rolled out of the way, but not without clawing at Darius’s ankle and dragging him to the ground. Landing with a solid thump, Darius didn’t have a second to blink before Draco straddled him, wailing punches into the soft flesh and hard bones of his face.

Finally realizing that their leader was getting the shite beat out of him, the two side characters that had flanked Darius tackled Draco and slammed the blond to the ground. All the air rushed out of Draco’s lungs like a punctured hot air balloon, and when he managed a shaky inhale, he could taste the metallic sting of blood gagging his throat. While athletic and quick with his movements, Draco could not compete against the sheer bulk of Darius’s goons pinning him down. He could do nothing but coldly glare as one of them smashed a direct hit on his nose. Bright red blood spurted down his face, dripping in rushed rivulets over his lips and staining his teeth.

_Why is it always the fucking nose?_ He thought bitterly. 

From the corner of his eye, he noted that Darius had staggered back up to his feet and was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The emotionless glower that Darius leveled at him would have sent an ordinary man into begging for his life. 

Fuck. This was about to become a 3-on-1 beatdown. And afterwards, Draco had no doubt that he’d be carted off to Azkaban for breaking his probation. Whenever he thought he had hit rock bottom, the world tossed him a shovel and told him to keep digging.

Suddenly as if life was throwing him a sprinkle of pity, the two gorillas were roughly pried off of him and he could feel himself getting hauled up by the armpits. Draco slowly craned his neck to find his savior, and nearly fell back down upon recognizing the person as Longbottom. Gone was the chubby kid with grubby hands and the constant stench of failure. In his place was a man that had grown tall and lean, losing almost all of his baby fat in exchange for broad shoulders and hard lines of muscle. His brown eyes had also changed, taking on a quiet solemnness very far off from his first-year naivety. 

“What the _hell_ is going on here?!” A familiar shrill voice demanded.

With every ounce of cognizance he had left, Draco forced himself to raise his gaze to Granger’s livid expression— eyes like molten lava and nostrils flaring with every hot inhale— as she dragged Darius to his feet.

“Go away, Granger,” Draco slurred out defiantly, though the effect may have been hindered by the crooked nose and the fact that his face was more blood than skin.

“Get your filthy hands off of me you mudblood slag,” Darius snarled, jerking out of Granger’s grasp. Granger pursed her lips, but let go of him and didn’t say another word.

For one singular moment, Draco’s vision focused razor sharp and he saw everything— the blind hatred in Darius’s eyes, the cruel disgust he held openly in his snarl. Granger’s guarded aloofness, a practiced acceptance of the phrase to mean nothing to her, even the way her face scrunched the tiniest bit with the effort to hide her hurt. It was jarringly familiar. 

In that singular moment, Darius’s brown hair shifted to platinum blond and his dark eyes lightened to grey. A moment of clarity washed through Draco like a cool trickle of water. It was obvious why the two boys would grow to hate each other. Draco wrangled himself out of Longbottom’s grasp, and with strength that had seemingly come out of nowhere, walloped Darius across the jaw with a solid right hook. The Slytherin sixth year promptly knocked out, unconscious. 

“I told you not to fucking call her that.” 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: The last scene was the first one I envisioned and birthed this entire story, as always thank you for reading and leaving kudos or comments!


	5. 10 centimeters of space

* * *

Draco bowed his head into his hands and leaned onto his knees. His head felt like it had been split open and haphazardly slapped back together, which it might as well have been considering the beating he had taken. It throbbed incessantly, like a heavy hand pressed against the back of his skull and squeezed in continuous pulses of pain. It was a slow, relentless sort of agony.

The only tiny silver lining on this huge grey cloud was ironically, that it was still Granger’s birthday. And of course, no Golden Girl’s birthday was complete without the grand finale of a riotous, all-inclusive-open-invite birthday bash. Even the staunchest of Granger’s haters couldn’t resist an epic party that flowed with butterbeer and the careless celebration of life.

For Draco, this was wonderful as well, because this meant that no one would think to look for him— celebrating a party for one in the pitch-black quidditch stands and nursing a bruised head. The humidity of summer had faded, and the night air was sharp and brisk against his skin. Goosebumps prickled across his forearms whenever a breeze wafted by, and he could see his breath puffing out whenever he exhaled.

He should move. Maybe go back to his room and properly pass out instead of freezing his arse off outside.

But Draco was no fool, and he knew why he had gravitated here. Despite surrounding herself with sport jocks, it was no secret that Granger didn’t care for quidditch. Of all the places in school, this was the least likely location that she’d turn up. No books, no learning, and no tables to write her essays on her, Granger would never show up here unless she purposefully—

“Finally,” a feminine voice huffed out.

As if his thoughts had summoned her, he looked to the left to see Granger stomping up the stands towards him.

Bollocks. What the hell. Why was she here?

Without missing a beat, Draco jumped to his feet and hastily broke off in the opposite direction.

“Malfoy! Wait! Stop, I just want to—” She hissed abruptly, cutting herself off.

He allowed himself a glance backwards to see her stumble on a bench and clutch her shin, then permitted another precious three seconds of roving his eyes over her—not bleeding, nothing broken, she’s fine. Alright. He returned his gaze forward and hopped down a few benches rather gracefully, at least in comparison to the thunderous footsteps of Granger tumbling after him.

Just as he landed on the last step and swiftly turned towards the exit, a warm hand enclosed around his bicep and yanked him backwards with a surprising amount of strength. “Draco…Malfoy…stop running away,” Granger wheezed out.

She panted heavily, one hand clutching her stomach, and it occurred to him that no one in his life had ever so urgently wanted his attention. Reluctantly, he rotated to face her. Never in a hundred years could he have imagined this scenario— Granger, sweaty, winded, and hair a frizzy mess— grasping onto his arm for support and hobbling on one leg.

“Merlin Malfoy, you walk so fast. I don’t have long legs like you do, can we sit?” Though she didn’t give him much of a choice as she tugged on his sleeve and they plopped unceremoniously onto the hard wood, a careful 10 centimeters of space between them. 

“Yes, well, it also could be because I was _trying to get away you_. What are you after me for this time? Just can’t get enough of feeding off my misery, can you?” 

Granger bristled, her shoulders tensing. One hand still held his arm, chaining him to her to like an obedient dog, and her other hand massaged at her sore shin. She closed her eyes and released a controlled breath. “Honestly Malfoy…I’ve had a horrible day. Can’t you let up on trying to bite my head off?”

“ _You’ve_ had a horrible day?” Draco repeated dryly.

“Alright, we’ve both had a horrible day,” Granger conceded, her eyes flickering from his crooked nose and split lip and then settling somewhere in between his eyebrows. Though the worst of it had been healed by Madam Pomfrey, he still looked rather worse for wear. 

Humorless laughter flooded out of him. “Not enough presents for your tower, Granger? Not enough people in the world celebrating your oh-so-special birthday? Or is this because I didn’t get punished yet for getting into a fistfight with that smarmy prat? Don’t worry, I’ve been waiting for it as well. I’ll bet you 10 galleons that come tomorrow morning, I’ll be expelled out of this school and whisked off to Azkaban. I’ll be lucky if they stuff me in the cell adjacent to my father’s. But I’m sure you already know all about the Malfoy woes from the Daily Prophet, don’t you?”

His head jerked to the side, blown back by the clean slap across his cheek. He fell backwards from the utter shock of it, face stinging and pale skin no doubt already reddening like a cherry. Before he could say a thing, Granger brusquely heaved him back to a sitting position and seized his collar, shoving her face mere centimeters from his nose. 

“Shut up. Shut up and listen to me! _Face me_ instead of running away like a scared coward and fabricating scenarios in your head. Do you know what I’ve been doing the last few hours? No, of course you don’t. You’re so lost in your head that you only see the things that you _think_ are true. I’ve been putting my neck on the line for your ungrateful arse. After your… _conflict_ _of interest_ with Berrow, I’ve been imploring McGonagall to let this transgression slide. I even pulled out the stupid ‘Golden Girl’ title, and emphasized that today was my 18th birthday, and I just wanted a good and peaceful day for everyone. On my firsthand account that Berrow was the one who provoked you and subsequently first attacked, and the fact that it was purely physical without the misuse of magic, McGonagall has agreed to let you off with a warning…contingent on your good behavior,” Granger finished, seemingly breathing for the first time since she started her tirade. “Don’t take this lightly Malfoy! You’re riding on my vouch of good faith.”

Draco frowned, squinting at Granger and uncertain what her angle was. The turn of events did not compute in his mind. He didn’t understand. And when faced with things he didn’t understand, Draco’s mind spiraled towards the familiar route of mistrustful skepticism. Was this her way of lording superiority over him? Now that the tables were turned, was she showing him that she could control his fate by flashing her gilded title? Or was it simpler than that, and she saw him as a pitiful creature to save. 

“I don’t understand,” Draco voiced quietly, though his acrimony was strung tightly like a stretched rubber band. “You already have everything. You won. You’re popular and can have anything you want as long as you utter your name. But that’s not enough, is it. Now you want to control me too? What, if the filthy Death Eater falls out of line, are you going to whip out your title and ship me off to Azkaban?” 

Granger’s jaw dropped, her eyes bulging in disbelief. She dropped his collar and wrung out her hands in frustration. “That’s _not_ what I was trying to do! Why do you put such a terrible twist on everything? Why can’t you believe that people can do kind things for each other?”

“Then it’s pity? That’s even worse. I don’t need to be fed scraps of your pity like a starving dog.” Draco straightened his robes and backed away, leveling her with a calculating glare.

“Why would you have any reason to defend me? I was your bully and your tormentor. I nearly sold you and your friends to a madman to save my own skin. There is nothing pleasant about our history together.”

As if expecting this reaction, Granger didn’t even blink. “You’re right, there are very few good memories we have of each other. We’re not friends nor are we on good terms,” she agreed coolly, “but we grew up together for 7 years, we’re not _nothing_.”

Carefully, as if afraid she would spook an animal, Granger touched the cusp of his left sleeve. When he didn’t shove her away, she gently rolled up his sleeve. She traced the outline of his Dark Mark, and he let her, mesmerized by the motion of her hand. He tensed at the feather-light contact of her fingertips, warm sparks tingling along his cold and clammy skin. When she reached the crest of the skull, she pulled away. Rolling up her own sleeve, she placed their forearms side by side.

“We fought a war together, Malfoy. Just on different sides,” she pressed the side of her arm lightly into his own. Draco’s eyes flickered to hers, and he watched her with his shields up. “People often ask me to regale war stories and share our adventures, how did we destroy the horcruxes? How did we sneak into the Ministry? What was it like riding on the back of a dragon? But that’s just it—they’re stories of one particular moment out of the stretch of thousands. People don’t think about the other moments—the constant fear, anxiety, and even the plain boredom from waiting around. I can’t tell you how many inactive days we sat in that tent thinking about what to do and scavenging the forest for meager herbs. Recovering from the war isn’t a thing that disappears with time, it’s more like a fog that fades away but never quite dispels. I feel like…like you’d get that. We’re not nothing to each other because we’re bound by this shared experience.”

Draco said nothing, his eyes never leaving hers. He nodded slowly. Granger seemed to accept his answer, and the fire within her eyes softened.

“Your fight with Berrow was about me, wasn’t it? Or more specifically, this word,” she said, tapping at her forearm.

“I suppose…” Draco gruffly admitted, “but don’t take it the wrong way. It wasn’t _over_ you.” He pulled his arm back to his side, unfolding his sleeve and shrouding his mark from view.

“Yes, yes,” Granger acknowledged, though she seemed bemused, as if she knew something he didn’t.

“Don’t you hate me?” He heard himself asking, felt his lips moving.

“I don’t hate you. And I don’t think I ever truly did,” she answered. She leaned over and peered at his cheek, wincing a bit at the red imprint her hand had she left. “I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have slapped you. That was a little mean.”

He rubbed at his cheek, feeling himself warming and oddly self-conscious under her scrutiny. “Nothing new, I suppose. I’ve been everyone’s punching bag lately.”

Granger didn’t refute him, and it looked like she was suppressing a smile. Reaching into her robes, she pulled out a flask of clear liquid and pressed it into his hand.

“Pain potion. Madame Pomfrey was hoping that enduring the pain would make you less inclined about getting into fights, but let’s let this one slide,” Granger explained.

Draco raised an eyebrow. “And here I thought you had a stick up your arse for rules,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “Please, my best friend is Harry Potter. Do you really think we won the war by following rules?”

Draco didn’t respond, angling his face away from her so she wouldn’t see that he had almost smiled. He uncorked the potion with a pop and downed it in one gulp. The pain stabbing the back of his head disappeared, falling away like a noose unraveling from his neck. Silence lingered between them like a third party, but it was almost a comfortable peace instead of awkward. Draco wasn’t so cold anymore.

“I do hate the word, obviously,” Granger confessed.

“What?”

“Mudblood, of course. It’s a bit illogical. I never even heard of the word until you called me one in our first year. Mud and blood are two words that have nothing inherently wrong about them. Mud is the mixture of earth and water, and blood is the fluid that serves as a vehicle for the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. But combine the words together and it becomes…ohhh, why would anyone like being called a terrible slur? Even someone as logical as me can’t rationalize it,” Granger tried to laugh, but it sounded so odd even to herself that she stopped, and fidgeted with her hands instead. “The word makes me feel so small. No matter what I achieved with my mind or my courage, all of that would be erased by my muddy blood. I can’t change my blood, it’s just something I was born with. I’m proud of who I am and where I came from. But it hurts to be on the receiving end of such blind hatred for something I can’t do a thing about,” Granger finished, staring blankly at her hands in her lap. She sniffed, and turned away from him abruptly.

“Granger,” he stated her surname, and waited until she covertly wiped her eyes and turned back to him. A thought from his dream jumped to the forefront of his mind, waiting for him in large bold font to say it out loud. “There’s something that took me 7 years to learn. Pureblood and mudblood are both blood. Blood is just fucking red. We fought a whole war over the bodily fluid that exchanges oxygen and carbon dioxide.”

As Granger recognized the implication behind his words, her lip wobbled and eyes scrunched up until her entire face crumpled. Then, peculiarly, Granger laughed, but this was soon replaced by shallow sniffles. It was a strange picture to say the least, Granger giggling even as teardrop after teardrop rolled down her face. Draco rummaged through his robes and pulled out a handkerchief with a silver embroidered ‘ _M’_ and pressed it into her hand. Without a fight, she accepted it and dabbed at her eyes.

“I’m sorry about this Malfoy, it’s been an emotional day. And I never thought that the day would come where you’d…well, defend me.” Granger beamed at him, and even though her eyes were glassed over by tears, they crinkled with pure elation. Never in his life did he think that such an expression could be directed at him, especially by her.

“Look Malfoy…about the other day in the library,” Granger hesitated, but then sniffed and cleared her throat. “I wanted to…apologize. That’s what I was trying to talk to you about this morning. I had assumed that you were ensnared in Death Eater activity, and that’s the problem, I assumed. I was worried that something dark was happening right under our noses again, but I shouldn’t have assumed you would fall into your previous role.”

No one had ever apologized to him for assuming that he engaged in Death Eater activity, and he hadn’t expected anyone to, least of all the Golden Girl on her bloody birthday. Draco lifted his shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “It wasn’t an irrational assumption. Berrow may be a complete arsehole, but he wasn’t completely wrong. I played both sides in the war, and as a result I will be suspected by everyone on every side until the end of my life.” 

Granger’s hand shifted closer to his, but just as she was a hairbreadth’s away from linking their pinky fingers, she placed her hand back in her lap.

Instead, she played with the ends of her hair, twirling it into a tight curl around her finger. She heaved a sigh and confessed, “I’m not going to lie. It’s likely true that you’ll be suspected. But that’s merely an initial impression, it’s a transient thing. I don’t…I don’t really think you’re an evil person Malfoy. People will grow to trust you after you’ve proven them wrong. That is, if you’d stop jumping to conclusions every other sentence.” The implication dangled lightly in the air like a low-hanging fruit.

Draco looked at her—actually looked at her, and startled at how closely their bodies had gravitated towards each other, their thighs practically brushing. He was exhausted, the walls of his mind shaking on muddy foundations. All the anger crumbled away as his walls fell to dust, and Draco was left with his uninhibited thoughts on Granger.

She really did have high cheekbones and intelligent eyes, and Merlin, she smelled lovely today— like fruit and flowers and soap all at the same time. How did he smell? Probably rancid, considering the caked blood in various parts of his body and dusty dirt coating his clothes. He probably looked like shite too, back to the vampire-corpse look that Theo had so aptly described him as.

Wait—since when did he care about what Granger thought of his scent and appearance? What the hell was going on? She had shifted from a side character attached to his sworn rival, to a muggle-born symbol that shattered every pureblood notion he had grown up with, to a twisted memory that haunted him of all his wrong choices, and now, to…to what? 

“…Malfoy?”

“Shouldn’t you be attending your own birthday party? Why are you out here?” He cringed as soon as he asked. Merlin, that was awful. He was going to get slapped again, wasn’t he?

However, his face was spared, as Granger had turned her attention to the Gryffindor tower, practically pulsating with pounding music and roving lights.

“I never wanted that birthday party, or any of this attention. It’s rather…embarrassing for my birthday to be so highly celebrated. But Ginny had insisted, and then George had claimed that it’d be the perfect venue to try out his new pyrotechnic products, and perhaps most surprising of all, Headmistress McGonagall had approved the whole thing. So well, there it is. I’ve come to terms with the lunacy of it all, this party isn’t really for me, it’s more of a way to instill some normalcy back to Hogwarts. It’s why we came back to Hogwarts, I suppose…” Granger swiftly stood up, her cheeks tinted pink as she smoothed out invisible wrinkles on her robes. “Ah well, I’m rambling again. I’ll just get going now that I’ve said my piece, enjoy um…” she swiveled around and observed the empty quidditch stands. “Err…whatever it was you were doing.”

What _was_ he doing? Sitting with Granger in the dark. But she was leaving, and soon he’d be back to being alone. He had practically flung her to her exit with asking about her party. Maybe it was the side effects of the pain potion, but Draco was suddenly overwhelmed with a flood of dread. No, he didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t want to be abandoned in the darkness.

His hand shot out and clasped her wrist, tugging her towards him. She gasped, freezing at the contact and he immediately loosened his grip, trying not to frighten her. 

“Would you like to go flying?” He blurted out.

“What?”

“I meant on a broom,” he felt the need to explain. “I like to start from the quidditch pitch, but I go all over the grounds.”

“Um…” Granger hedged. She trailed off, her eyes darting around everywhere but his face.

“Right, of course not. Never mind,” Draco said, dropping her wrist and steepling his hands together. He rested his chin on the bridge of his fingers and tried to project an air of nonchalance. 

“It’s not what you’re thinking,” Granger insisted. “I’m just…not really fond of flying. It’s so objectively dangerous.”

“This coming from the witch who escaped from Gringotts on the back of a dragon?”

“That was different, it was out of necessity! A broom is nothing but a flimsy piece of wood, if your magic or focus falters for just a moment, then you’d be freefalling at nearly 200 kilometers per hour. If your wand flies out of your robes, you’d be plummeting hundreds of kilometers out of the sky to become a human pancake. Plus, there’s no seatbelts on these things and it’s impractical to fashion one…”

“What’s a seatbelt? Why would a seat need a belt? I don’t recall any muggle seats wearing trousers.”

Granger giggled, waving a hand in front of her. “No no, that’s not what a seatbelt is—ah, never mind….”

“ _Accio_ broomstick,” Draco called, and his worn Nimbus 2001 rushed obediently to his open palm. He rubbed his thumb on the sleek black surface. Although he certainly had the funds to upgrade his broom, he was reluctant to part with this one. After all, it was one of the last gifts his father had bestowed on him while Draco still idolized the man. “If you’re afraid, we can ride on this one together. I won’t let you fall. I assure you that I didn’t buy my way onto the quidditch team every year. If Flint thought I was hogwash as a seeker he would have dumped me in a heartbeat.”

Her giggles quickly disappeared, and she looked Draco up and down uncertainly. Granger mulled over his offer, pacing the small width of space between the quidditch benches with her hands clasped behind her back.

The time ticked on, each second like a small puncture to Draco’s balloon of confidence. He had thought of himself as quite the talented flyer, it was one of the few items on his very short list of things that hadn’t been tainted by the war. Not too long ago, a line of girls would have pounced on the opportunity to join him for an evening fly. Granted, this was Granger and she wasn’t exactly his biggest fan girl…

“Never mind, it was an impulsive question. Forget I said anything—”

“Okay,” Granger interrupted.

He clicked his tongue, mildly affronted at the quick acquiesce. “Well. Alright then. Go ahead and take your leave—" 

“No, you misunderstand,” she blazed forward, “I meant okay that I’ll go flying with you. I’ve finished crunching the numbers and thought of the ways to mitigate all potential scenarios. Falling, dropping my wand, upchucking, and so on and so forth.”

“And what about me? Was my questionable trustworthiness factored into your calculations?”

Granger stared back at him with the tiniest of smiles. “No. Not this time.”

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

Granger clutched the broom handle, or more appropriately, strangled it with her white-knuckled grasp.

“Granger, we’re not moving. Your feet are still touching the ground,” Draco deadpanned. He noted the perfect 10 centimeters of space between them, which must have been calculated as the optimal amount of distance to give them both sufficient room and not have to touch each other.

“Just force of habit,” Granger said sheepishly.

Draco kicked off the ground—firmly, but refraining from putting too much power into the lift off— and they flew a few meters over the empty expanse of the grassy field. Wind ruffled through his air as he steered the broom in lazy circles around the pitch. He inhaled deeply, enjoying the thinness of the air running coolly through his nostrils and smell of clean air.

He felt the broom shift behind him, and craned his neck backwards to see Granger tentatively peering down.

“Easy with the wobbling, keep your feet still,” Draco looked pointedly at her feet as she struggled to adjust her balance.

“They are!” Granger protested, almost sounding like a whiny first-year who had been berated for answering the question incorrectly.

“Oh? And here I thought everything came so naturally to the most brilliant witch of our age,” Draco replied.

“ _I_ never said that. Other people did, and it’s not my fault if it happens to be true more often than not,” Granger corrected.

Draco let out a wry chuckle. “Perhaps you simply need a more practical education…”

Before Granger could utter a logical rebuttal, Draco leaned forward and grasped the broom in both hands. He angled the broom towards the sky, and they soared towards the moon. Granger screamed—shrill, girlish, and entirely unpleasant— and because Draco enjoyed having his eardrums intact, he veered off to the left and right so they climbed the sky in a slower upward spiral.

Draco heard Granger release a sigh of relief before taking in deep calming breaths. Oh, but they were just getting started. He dipped the broom handle downwards and they plummeted towards the ground like sledding down a steep slope. Blood roared through his ears like a crashing waterfall. The 10 centimeters that Granger had carefully laid between them dissolved as she slammed against his back and wrapped her arms around his waist. Even through her robes she was undeniably warm and soft—her curves pressed flush against his back.

But Draco could hardly allow his hormones to dwell on such details as she squeezed the life out of his delicately healing ribs. On top of that, the wind whipped recklessly through her hair, and Granger’s bushy head of curls slapped around Draco’s cheeks as she buried her head in the crook of his neck. Her vice grip around him tightened, which Draco didn’t know was possible, and he choked out a gasp, nearly losing his hold of the broom handle.

“Pull up Malfoy!” She screamed, though he didn’t know how she could see considering her eyes were squeezed shut.

Draco finally looked down, and his eyes bugged as he realized that they were mere seconds from colliding with the not-so-forgiving ground. He curved his broom and straightened them onto a horizontal course, skidding against the tips of the blades of grass as dirt and dust clouds billowed around them. They sped through nearly the entire length of the quidditch field as Draco brought their velocity back under control. Death grip still intact, Granger clung onto Draco even after he ascended back into the air and made circles in the sky. 

“Granger, if you’re trying to kill me then you’re going to have to fly this broom all by yourself. For both of our sakes, I think it’d be best if you allowed me to breathe,” Draco rasped.

Granger whimpered, but loosened her grip on his waist and Draco sucked in a greedy breath of air. However, Granger pulled back one arm and pounded his back with a barrage of punches. “Malfoy! That was cruel of you to fly us so dangerously!”

“It wasn’t on purpose,” he replied back, a bit defensive, “it wouldn’t have been such a close call if you weren’t trying to break my ribs or strangle me with your hair.”

“Hmph,” she intoned, and he could practically see her pout. “Sorry…”

Draco turned his head back, a little pleased to see that she was indeed pouting with a touch of remorse. “Haven’t you ever heard of a hair tie, Granger?”

She made an exasperated noise. “Honestly, why is everyone so obsessed with me taming my hair? It’s just _hair_ , it’s not even alive, and really it’s such a trivial thing.” 

“Relax Granger, I wasn’t going down that route. Even you must understand the practicality of having hair out of your eyes during high-speed broom rides, correct? Besides,” he faced forward and steered their course like ascending a spiral staircase. “I think your hair is fine as is,” he confessed, not exactly sure why he admitted it.

Granger said nothing, but didn’t remove her arms from around his waist.

Wisps of white condensation breezed past their faces as they flew through a cloud. Granger quietly cast a warming charm as the cloud encased them with cold moisture, but Draco could still feel her entire body shiver as she nuzzled closer to him to steal his body heat.

Maybe it was the adrenaline from the rush of flying. Maybe it was because it was her birthday. Maybe it was some other ridiculous confounding factor. Because for the life of him, Draco could not understand how Granger didn’t recoil at being in such close proximity to him.

As if reading his thoughts, Granger’s voice floated to his ears, “Is this making you uncomfortable? I’m sorry it’s just…this is a lot more frightening than I imagined and you’re the closest thing to a seatbelt.”

“I still can’t fathom why muggles feel the need to give their seats trousers,” Draco mused.

Granger laughed, her giggles lightening the space between them as Draco flew them out of the clouds and over the picturesque view of Hogwarts at night.

“Hey, looks like George began the main fireworks show without me,” Granger nudged Draco and pointed him towards the Gryffindor tower.

Beautiful splashes of color lit up the sky like paint splattered against a black canvas. Pops and crackles fizzled through the air as a display of streamer fireworks sparkled gold and silver before fading out.

“I don’t recommend that we get too close unless you would like a mouthful of ash,” Granger warned.

“Pity. Shame that we can’t hear Weasley’s oh-so-subtle product placement from here. Considering that ambition, perhaps he would have made a decent fit in Slytherin,” Draco drawled.

He felt a half-hearted smack on his shoulder. “Ohhh don’t be mean. George’s fireworks have been lovely,” Granger protested, but he could hear in her voice that she didn’t completely disagree with him.

After the last firework crackled out, Draco flew them over Hogwarts at a distance far enough that a casual stargazer wouldn’t have been able to recognize their faces. Yellow light glowed from the windows like candles and black waters lazily lapped against the rocks, providing a soothing soundtrack with their back-and-forth cadence. His life had been a tornado over the last few weeks wrought with night terrors, early morning occlumency runs, Room of Requirement mysteries, and fistfight-turned-brawls…but now, Draco felt like he was drifting through the sea. Floating on his back and staring at scattered white stars as the cold water bobbed him to the surface.

The notion of flying on a broom with Granger on her birthday was absolutely ridiculous and straight out of a fantastical imagination, but—

This was peace.

And dare he say, the closest he’s felt to content for a long time.

Sometime during his train of thoughts, Draco had floated them above the layer of clouds and hovered before the full moon. Granger’s arms around his waist tightened, soon followed by a horrified gasp. He didn’t need to turn around to know that she was gaping at the ground thousands of meters below them.

“First rule of flying is to never look down, but to look up,” Draco broke into her thoughts, gesturing towards the view before them. 

The moon shone as a huge ball of white light. The roundness of the circle, sharpened to perfect clarity, contrasted against the fuzzy edges of its glowing aura. It appeared so close, as if he could reach out his hand and crush it in his palms.

“Oh wow, that is beautiful,” Granger breathed out. “Is this why you enjoy flying so much? To see the views?”

Draco shrugged. “Not quite.”

Granger hummed contemplatively, like she had found a loose thread and was resisting the temptation to tug it. “Then…why do you enjoy flying?” Not resisting very hard, apparently.

Draco didn’t reply, instead zig-zagging over the carpet of clouds and leaving slashes through the puffs of white. Maybe it was because his flying pace was somewhat languid and less death-defying, or most likely it was because Granger hated having her questions unanswered, but she de-tangled herself from him and scooted towards the back of the broom. Cold gales rifled through his robes where her body had once shielded him.

She was right earlier— they weren’t nothing, but they certainly weren’t friends who regularly indulged in cozy chats around the fire.

Obviously, he knew why he liked to fly. But as if he would leave himself out in the open like that.

Of the 6 billion people in the world, Draco Malfoy was destined to shine above all the other ordinary humans. From the moment he was born, Draco’s lineage and genes and circumstances had set him up with all the silver spoons in the palm of his hands. He was a wizard for one, but not just any humdrum wizard, he was powerful, rich, and handsome to boot. Most of all, he was the sole heir of one of the most respected families in all of the Wizarding World. 

Draco Malfoy wasn’t going to be a faceless nobody. He was someone… _more_ than the average soul. Someone special.

Being this more-than-average-and-special soul, Draco of course excelled at flying immediately. The first time he touched a broom, it jumped into his hands with only a slight amount of coaxing. Before he had turned 10, he already could soar through the Malfoy grounds with the wind rippling through his hair, eyes bright with excitement as he performed a loop-de-loop as naturally as breathing.

Draco was going to sweep the entire first-year class as the best flyer. Most of those plebeians had probably never laid their grubby paws on a broom before, and there were also going to be muggleborns who were still reeling from the fact that cleaning supplies could fly. With all the advantages he had under his belt, he was going to become the only first-year student who landed a spot on the quidditch team. This was going to be his first legendary moment of what was surely many to come.

But there was just one thing he didn’t factor…or more specifically, person.

Harry fuckin’ Potter.

It wasn’t enough that Potter already swallowed the entirety of the school’s attention before he even stepped foot into the castle. Now this scar head, who had been raised as a muggle and existed in the wizarding world for barely a month, could effortlessly command a broom on his first try and out-fly him? Draco seethed at the memory, clutching the broom handle in his hands so tightly that the wood creaked.

Draco was no fool. Deep down in his heart, he knew that he excelled in academics due to his prestigious private tutors and access to the grandiose Malfoy library. It wasn’t all completely because of himself. But flying was the one thing that couldn’t so easily be improved by studying and books, his natural skill for flying was something he was good at all by himself. Perhaps the _only_ thing in his life that he could take credit for as his own, and not because he was born into power, riches, and handsomeness.

And it had shattered like glass by a boy who didn’t even realize it. Draco had all the silver spoons in the palm of his hand. But he would never be more special than Harry Potter.

Seven years later, he finally understood what he had been trying to deny in his first year. He wasn’t a special soul. He was only propped up by all the advantages he had been gifted with in his childhood. Without them, Draco Malfoy wasn’t really anybody.

“You know, I was envious of how easily Harry learned flying,” Granger’s voice carried through the night.

The broom stalled for a fraction of time as the surprise slapped him in the face. Was he speaking out loud? No, he was certain he wasn’t… He forced his magical current back through the broom, hoping that Granger hadn’t noticed the falter.

Granger continued on as if nothing had happened, “I had read up on all the books on the theory of flying before class, and then moved on to practicing channeling magic into my fingertips. I was probably the only student who ever indulged in pre-class work, but all I managed to achieve was a slight wiggle of my broomstick. Harry on the other hand, and he’s my best friend I love him I really do, had no experience, completely broke the rules, and then got rewarded for it by getting on the quidditch team without a real trial. Honestly the school could be so blatant with its favoritism sometimes…”

Draco arched back to stare at her, attempting to keep his features neutral despite how gobsmacked he was. Granger was already looking at him, a meaningful glint in her eyes that he wasn’t quite sure how to unpack.

“I’m not assuming anything,” she added quickly, “just thinking out loud, that’s all.”

He faced forward, throwing his occlumency walls up for good measure. 

“For what it’s worth, I was envious of you as well. You're a good flyer. A good quidditch player too, I believe. Granted I don’t remember all the details of each game, but generally I surmised that you were a talented flyer, had quick reflexes, and were thoughtful with your decisions.”

He shouldn’t care about her opinion. He shouldn’t feel the swell of pride that ballooned in his chest. He shouldn’t feel his face warming and the tips of his ears burning red.

“I think you could have beat Harry if you fully focused on the game. Ironically, you let your obsession with beating him distract you from beating him,” Granger pondered.

“Why are you telling me this?” Draco finally interjected. “We don’t…interact like this.” 

Although he couldn’t see her, he imagined the motion of her one-shouldered shrug. “You’ve had a horrible day already. We could be perfectly civil to each other if we wanted to. Why try to attack each other just to keep up the status quo?”

“You’ve had a horrible day as well,” Draco countered.

There was a lull in their conversation as Granger mentally flipped through her day. “I suppose it wasn’t really that horrible. It’s not every day that my best friend’s former arch-nemesis gets into a muggle-style fistfight with an underclassman and then we hop onto a broomstick to watch George Weasley’s product-placement fireworks in the sky.”

Draco snorted. “Don’t forget all the wobbling. You dance on the back of the broom like a clown.”

“Malfoy!” Granger admonished, more embarrassed than angry. “You’re so dramatic with your exaggerating…” The broom shifted as Granger adjusted her weight, and he thought he felt heat radiating near his right arm…

However, when he snuck a glance back, there was nothing by his arm, and Granger’s gaze was directed towards the moon they were flying past. But maybe, and just a maybe, because considering the amount of wind that had dried out his eyes it was understandable for his eyesight to be a bit impaired, the space between them wasn’t quite 10 centimeters anymore. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: There's a slight Easter egg reference in here for anyone who's seen that video of Tom Felton and Emma Watson on a skateboard~ 
> 
> Despite everything that Draco has gone through, I still want to keep his prickly personality intact and keep the essence of him being a difficult person. It keeps his dynamic with Hermione more tense and compelling, I hope I captured it right. 
> 
> I don't want to force anyone to review and know that people get busy, but please provide comments/feedback if you're enjoying or interested in the story! This is the first time I'm writing Dramione so I'm still new to the fandom, so thank you to everyone who has supported me so far! :)


	6. These walls we build

* * *

_Draco’s back is ramrod straight; his hands clasped firmly behind his lower back. He stands in the middle of blank space, immobile in a sea of nothing._

_White floors. White walls. White doors. He’s the sole pinpoint of color in the form of a black tailored suit and shock of platinum-blond hair._

_Surrounded by this empty space, the deafening sound of nothing and the dense heaviness of silence suffocate him more than any crowded room._

_Suddenly, something in the air shifts, and the tension reverberates along the infinite white plane._

_The maze has been solved._

_He feels it before he sees it, the ominous pressure of evil enveloping, though not quite touching him. A black puddle seeps through the crack under the one door in front of him. It slinks in slowly, like thick molasses, as if it thinks that trickling in would be less conspicuous._

_But then something starts to grow, a solid form twitching to life from the pool of ink. A terrible squelching sound is the only noise in this white space as a disfigured hand bursts into existence. Then another. And another. The trickling rivulets from the black puddle branches into multiple hands, crawling on their fingers as they stampede towards him in a rumbling staccato._

_Draco doesn’t move a muscle as he is swathed in a sea of black hands. Their lithe fingers press pinpricks of pure icy cold as they ransack every corner of white space. The hands slam against a white wall guarding a door, haphazardly toppling over each other until they form a clumsy tower, fingers like thousands of writhing spider legs. They slam and slam and slam until the wall groans out a tiny crack, which is immediately ripped into by bony fingers prying the wall in two. Draco falls to his knees, clutching his hair as sharp pain lances through his head like a pickaxe striking an icicle._

_Fortify, aloof, causal, he reminds himself, and hastily erects another wall before the door can be torn open._

_But then, like the last drop of a torrential downpour, everything stops._

_The hands crawl backwards on their fingers in a steady retreat, and Draco is sucked back into the present, sweat pouring down his neck and adhering the fabric of his white-collared shirt to his back._

_“Barely passable,” his aunt Bellatrix appraises clinically. She’s picking at a hangnail on her thumb, which is far more interesting than her nephew’s mental torture. “If it was the Dark Lord in my stead, however, those flimsy walls of yours would be destroyed with merely his pinky finger.”_

_Bellatrix’s beady black eyes narrow a fraction, a saccharine sweet smile playing at her lips. “But you don’t have anything to hide from him, do you Draco, my dear?”_

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

Draco slipped onto the castle grounds like a shadow blending in with the night. Like clockwork, Draco’s nightmares woke him up between 5 to 5:30 am, and by 6 am, he was usually stepping onto the castle grounds. The sunrises were starting to begin later as autumn rolled in, but at this point, he was so accustomed to his routes that he could navigate with just the faintest twinkle of stars.

“Oh Malfoy, good morning.”

Draco jumped, immediately brandishing his wand and positioning into a defensive stance. When he recognized the voice, however, he stowed his wand back in his pocket.

He groaned. “Bloody hell Granger, what are you doing here at this hour?”

“Same as you, I believe. Out for a run,” Granger answered matter-of-factly.

“At 6 in the morning?” Malfoy inquired dryly. 

“You do it all the time, so why would it be unusual for me to be here too?” Granger pointed out. She stepped closer, her silhouette no longer shrouded in black as she was illuminated by the yellow glow of a nearby window.

Probably more words were said after that, but Draco was very much not listening. Gone were her flowing robes and sensible stockings, she was clad in a light jacket that was only halfway zipped up, grey leggings that clung to her legs like a second skin, and her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail, a few loose strands framing her face.

“Malfoy? Malfoy!”

She waved her hand in his face to re-capture his attention. He blinked, dragging his eyes away from the strip of skin exposed under some sort of pink brassiere. Up close, he noticed that her jacket was seafoam green. Carnation pink and seafoam green? Granger in soft pastel colors was…odd, he didn’t know she owned anything other than comfortable jumpers in neutral tones. 

“Take this,” Granger ordered, plopping a cardboard box into his hand.

Still a bit stupefied by her appearance, his fingers mechanically accepted the light-weight package. “What is this—”

“Just open it,” she cut off, her cheeks tinging pink.

He raised an eyebrow, but complied and popped open the lid. Inside, sat a neatly folded long-sleeved shirt and a pair of shorts. He ran a finger along the smooth, elastic material.

“Trainers to match too,” she added, using her foot to nudge the shoes she placed in front of him. “Black shirt, black shorts, and black shoes. Your favorite color palette.”

Perplexed, Draco pulled out the shirt and dangled it by its sleeve. “Why did you give me clothing?”

“ _Because,_ ” Granger ground out as if it was a chore for her to explain, “it’s mind-boggling how you run in a button-down shirt, trousers, and dragonhide boots. Since when is running a business-casual affair? You look absolutely ridiculous.”

Draco picked at his current attire. “There’s nothing wrong with my clothes,” he insisted, “I’ve grown accustomed to—”

“ _Try on the outfit, Malfoy,_ ” Granger commanded, her eyes sharpening to narrow slits even as her cheeks darkened a little rosier.

“Okay okay, don’t hex me,” Draco raised his hands placatingly. A chill ran up and down his spine as he suddenly gained clarity on how Potter and Weasley survived the war as well as they did under Granger’s management. He made a swirling motion with his index finger and Granger caught the hint, instantly swiveling around to give him some privacy. His gaze lingered on her ponytail as it swished back and forth, sweeping over her bare neck.

Pulling his wand out of his trousers, he tapped it against the new clothes draped over his arm and waited patiently as his magic swapped outfits. Wow…this was really snug. 

“Alright, I’m decent now,” Draco announced. He couldn’t help but smirk at the way her eyes widened as they raked over his body appreciatively.

“It’s muggle running attire. Helps with skin breathability and should be much more comfortable to move around in,” Granger explained, her voice a bit croaky.

“I see…it’s nice,” he conceded, flexing his arm and feeling the fabric stretch with him. “Thank you,” he said quietly. (What? He knew how to show appreciation for a gift; pureblood etiquette lessons weren’t simply for show.)

But Granger must have heard him loud and clear, considering the way her eyes lit up and the brilliant beam that blossomed across her face.

“I’ll um…see you,” he muttered before they could continue the conversation. He ducked his head and bolted down a familiar path. Merlin, why was he acting like an awkward 14-year old kid?

Barely a minute later, Granger crossed into his peripheral vision and gave him a coy grin. He nearly lost his footing as he landed awkwardly on a craggy rock, was she…trying to beat him? He couldn’t be sure— so he increased his pace and overtook her in a few strides. Draco kept the lead for another 30 seconds before Granger flew past him, not even deigning him with a look this time.

Oh, it was on. It was never wise to wake the sleeping dragon. Especially one who had been powered up by muggle running attire.

The passive-aggressive-back-and-forth carried on well past the sunrise. In fact, he hadn’t even noticed the night fading until the sky was a peaceful expanse of cerulean. Actually, he hadn’t had the chance to occlude tonight, had he? Lost in the distraction of trying to one-up Granger, he hadn’t accomplished his routine.

A few minutes rolled by as he mulled over this unplanned deviation, but he soon noticed that Granger was no longer trying to surpass him. He turned around in time to watch Granger slow to a brisk walk, clutching her side and panting heavily. Sweat dripped down her flushed face, her ponytail messy with more unruly strands frizzing around her face.

Mirroring her, Draco slowed to a walk as well, hands in the pockets of his new muggle shorts as he waited for her to catch up.

“Fine Malfoy, you win,” she said by way of greeting. With her forearm, she wiped sweat off her brow and fanned her face with her hand. She tugged out her ponytail, and the mass of hair cascaded down her shoulders like a waterfall being unleashed from a dam. Mesmerized, Draco watched her mouth nibble on the elastic band as her hands combed through her tangled hair, only turning away after her dexterous fingers teased her hair back into a neater ponytail.

Oblivious to any blatant staring, Granger complained, “I am clearly the least athletic person out of everyone I know. How are you still so calm and collected? You’re barely out of breath.” She fumbled with her zipper and then yanked open her jacket, fully exposing the muggle athletic brassiere and the milky skin of her stomach. Draco’s eyes boggled, but he hauled his gaze away from anymore indecent ogling and cleared his throat.

“Modesty, Granger,” he chided under his breath.

“What?” Panic leaked in her voice, until she looked down and noticed nothing was amiss. Her shoulders lowered as she relaxed. “Oh, this is called a sports bra Malfoy. It’s very common for muggle women to go running in only these.”

“Well you’re a witch,” he snootily retorted, “and your muggle attire is inappropriate for this magical campus.”

Granger rolled her eyes, making sure the motion was exaggerated enough for him to witness it. “Oh? At the Quidditch World Cup, weren’t you the one waiting for my knickers to be shown off when Death Eaters dangled me in midair?”

Draco stopped, his new shoes staggering into a plot of earth. How could she dredge up the past like that so casually? He hunched forward, unable to look her in the eye. “It was a cruel thing to say. I should have thought of a better way to warn you about what was going on.”

For once, Granger had nothing to say—perhaps flabbergasted at the lack of his arrogant comeback, he supposed. They continued their cooldown walk in silence, though the air between them had become charged with tension. Granger squirmed uncomfortably, likely berating herself for ruining their civil morning with less-than-pleasant memories from the past. 

Draco sighed. “It’s fine, Granger. You’re not wrong, that is what I said. I’m not going to try to pretend that wasn't me."

Granger nodded, then rubbed at her arms. Now that they weren’t profusely sweating, the chill of the autumn morning brushed their skin with goosebumps.

“…Why are you out here running every morning?” Granger broached carefully. It was likely the question that she had been itching to ask since the very beginning.

“How do _you_ know that I’m here every morning?” Draco pointed out instead. 

She fiddled with the sleeves of her jacket. “Oh…I suppose it doesn’t hurt to tell you. Ever since the war, I don’t exactly know if it started during or after, I haven’t been able to properly sleep. It’s not because I’m not tired, because I am _exhausted_ , but when it comes down to it, my mind can’t properly shut down. It’s like my body knows that my mind is afraid to dive back into—” she cut herself off, biting on her lip.

Draco waited patiently, allowing her the space.

“...Usually I pass the time by reading, but one day I became restless and roamed around the school. When I got up to the astronomy tower, I saw…you running around grounds in that ridiculous business-causal outfit. It wasn’t like I was purposefully trying to follow you or anything, but it just kept on happening. Every time I went to the astronomy tower you were already out there running. And I don’t know, it made me curious…” she trailed off, her face burning scarlet.

“Little Miss Golden Girl was stalking me? Should I be flattered?”

A noise that was a mix between a sputter and a whine blew out of Granger’s lips. “I was not _stalking_ you. It was just a series of coincidences.”

“But you found me today due to your prior stalking knowledge and then proceeded to join me, isn’t that right? And last night, when you found me in an empty quidditch field when you should have been the guest of honor at your birthday party, was that also a coincidence? Pray tell, are you going to enlighten me on this different definition of ‘stalking’ that you’re abiding by?”

“Okay fine! I may have perhaps toed the line of stalking here and there, but will you stop going on a tangent and answer my sodding question?” Granger erupted, looking this close to shaking him like a tree. 

“My Gods, woman. If you kill me, then you’ll never get your answers.”

“ _Malfoy._ ”

Draco exhaled audibly through his nose. Fine, he supposed he could divulge a tiny sliver of truth. He didn’t have anything to lose, after all.

“Occlumency,” he said simply.

“Occlumency?” Granger parroted. Her eyebrows knit together. “I was under the impression that occlumency was used to close one’s mind against a legilimency attack.”

“Correct, but there are other purposes as well. For one,” Draco tapped at his head, “there’s a lot of fucked-up, and rather unsavory, nightmare fuel in here.”

“Nightmares…” Granger latched onto the word like a honeybee to a field of pollen. She ruminated on the word, no doubt stringing together an intricate board of criss-crossing theories. “But you’re out here every morning? Then you’ve been experiencing nightmares every night and then occluding them out here?”

“No more questions,” Draco quipped, hating how quickly she had dissected him like a dead frog. Was he really so transparent?

Entering her thinking mode, Hermione propped her chin in her hand and barely noticed when Draco _Accio’d_ his school robes to cover her inappropriate muggle athletic attire.

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

A book that must have been at least half a meter long thumped onto the table, coughing out a plume of dust from its crackling yellowed pages.

“So, I’ve been doing some light reading,” Hermione initiated, as if civil conversion was something that the two of them engaged in on a regular basis.

Draco chose not to comment on the situation’s bizarreness, and instead watched as she stacked a colorful array of books, each one piling on top of another with a solid thud.

“Light reading?” Draco drawled. 

“Yes, I haven’t had a chance to peruse _all_ the books in the library yet. And I’m doing this in my own leisure time rather than a school assignment. So yes. Light reading,” Hermione explained.

“Oh no, how can you live up to your swottiest-girl-in-school reputation with 2 books still left unturned?”

Huffing, Hermione crossed her arms over her stomach. “Don’t be such a prat. I’m doing this for _you_.”

“I never asked you to clean out an entire bookshelf. Nor for anything else for that matter,” he flapped his hand, gesturing for her to leave.

Her face twitched, and Draco swore that he could practically see a pulsing vein in her temple, but she stood her ground.

“ _Occlumency_ ,” she gritted out, “I’ve been researching everything there is to know about it.”

Looking up from his transfigurations essay, he rolled his eyes. “Why am I not surprised?” 

As an answer, Hermione slid into the chair across from him. She shoved some books to the side so she could view him unobstructed, and soon the two of them were bracketed in a book fortress. “I have a theory about your nightmares that I would like to discuss.” 

Draco stiffened, though tried to keep his features nonchalant. “Even if I said no, you’re going to tell me anyways, aren’t you?”

“Great, you’re catching on,” Granger said with a little simper, and continued, “I hypothesize that these nightmares may be a consequence of the exhaustive and overuse of your occlumency over the last year. All your memories and thoughts have been overstuffed into the metaphorical compartments in your head, and they’re starting the inevitable process of spilling over. Now that the imminent threat of well, Voldemort, isn’t here anymore, your mind doesn’t have the same fight-or-flight panicked adrenaline to keep your walls up all the time. Hence, I postulate that your nightmares are founded by memories, and they trickle out while you’re at your most vulnerable state in your sleep.”

He massaged the crease of skin between his eyes and pushed his chair back from the table, its legs screeching against the hardwood floor. “What do you want Granger? Should I give you my heart next to filet? Or maybe there are still some parts of my soul left to crush.”

“No, I want to help you.”

Draco scoffed, kicking his foot out so his back rested against the curve of his chair. “You want to help me?” he repeated flatly, “You know what, I’m a bit intrigued. Please enlighten me on your carefully conceived plan to help me.” 

Yes, what was Granger’s brilliant plan to help him cope with the night terrors that started _because_ of her?

“I want to go into your dreams.”

One blink, then another. Draco rubbed at his eyes.

“With you, of course,” she elaborated, “you can pull your dreams out into a pensieve and we can enter them together.” Her chair scraped against the floor and the table creaked as she leaned her elbows onto it. “Look, I know it sounds a little barmy. But every theory sounds barmy before it’s tested, doesn’t it? The very nature of occlumency is to hide and suppress, so why not try the opposite and confront your terrors head on?” 

One beat of silence. Then another. Draco roared with laughter, a deep, belly-aching, torrent of laughter that hadn’t been so unbridled in years.

“Granger, this is either a very elaborate joke or you’ve gone completely mental,” Draco said, wiping a stray tear from the corner of his eye.

She slid her elbows down the table, leaning so closely towards him that he could see the splatter of light-brown freckles across the bridge of her nose. “Malfoy, I’m not kidding. I think that this may help you. And I’d like to help you, if you’d allow me to do so.”

Draco narrowed his eyes, the smile retreating like a ghost to the closet. “Like I’d believe for one bloody second that you’re not joking.”

“Draco.” Deep brown eyes penetrated relentlessly into his own. There was not even a twitch of a smile, her face held no trace of amusement. “I am not kidding,” she punctuated each word defiantly. 

His grey eyes darkened, thinly veiled anger simmering behind his cool glare. “Then you must be completely mental. The answer is no. To be clear, this is a very resounding fuck no.”

Granger’s face pinched at the swear, but she remained otherwise unfazed. “It doesn’t have to be all of them, the top 3 strongest memories would suffice.”

“So typical of you to poke your head into everyone’s business. I know you want to sprinkle your saintly Granger dust on all the lost souls of the world, but it’s best to leave this Big Bad Death Eater alone.”

Her fist slammed against the table, the impact jostling the meticulously stacked tower of books. Her nostrils flared to life.

“Don’t patronize me Malfoy! You don’t know what I’ve been through and all that I’ve seen. You don’t know what I’ve suffered,” she snarled. Her face contorted in pain, a rippling fierceness that he hadn’t seen since she punched him in their third year. 

“And neither do you,” he sneered back. “You wouldn’t be able to handle being inside my head. And you’re mental for wanting to be subjected to it on your own free will.”

“Why are you always like this? Shielding and building walls and barely living like a human. Are you going to run and hide and occlude for the rest of your life? How many 5 am mornings are you going to wake up to? This isn’t sustainable, Malfoy.”

“Who are you to judge me? It may not fit in with your perfect ideals and happy endings but this is what works for me,” Draco snapped back just as hotly, “For once in my life, this is my own solution to my problems. This is a choice that's finally my own. Stop thinking that you’re always fucking right about everything and stay out of it.” His heart thudded painfully against his rib cage, working overdrive to churn all the blood now pounding in his ears. He released a breath that he’d been unconsciously holding into a heavy sigh.

“Please, Granger,” he whispered.

Granger frowned; her eyes still full of fire. But she said nothing more, and sunk back into her seat. After a few moments of painfully palpable silence, Granger’s face fell into an expression that was an attempt at apologetic.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come off so nosy…I just wanted to help.” Her hands extended out to automatically tidy up the book tower that she had shifted. Something to keep her hands occupied while she ignored the acerbic aura radiating off of Draco in waves.

As if her apology was like cool water trickling over him, Draco felt his anger evaporate like hissing steam from his heated skin. Her intentions were aggravatingly pure, and he couldn’t bring himself to hold onto his ire in the face of her sincerity.

Draco forced his clenched jaw to loosen and cleared his throat, immediately garnering her attention.

“Granger, this is not a problem for you to solve. I’m trying to warn you,” he explained with a tightly controlled calmness. 

“From what?”

Draco didn’t answer, and instead joined her in arranging the books back into neat stacks.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Sometimes having all the answers isn't the same as being right... I love Hermione but I wanted to make it a little open-ended on boundaries vs good intentions. 
> 
> On a minor detail note, I'm fond of the idea that Draco has grown up with pureblood ideals of modesty, Narcissa probably dresses like a classy queen with a demure style and that's what he's accustomed to seeing. So I like characterizing him as actually a bit prudish when it comes to skin exposure and easily seduced by relatively innocent things. I also just like a flustered Draco, haha.
> 
> Please leave feedback if you can :) I decided to bump this story up from 12 to 14 chapters


	7. Truth be told

* * *

It was unusual for Draco to arrive to potions class before Theo.

Not that Draco was known for being tardy, or that Theo was known for being particularly early. It was just that Draco had perfected the art of punctuality and always arrived at the exact moment of on time.

So, when he slinked into his seat and set up his cauldron without a seat partner, he should have already known something was amiss. To be fair, he didn’t have much time to dwell on the oddity as Slughorn swept into the room with a huge grin on his face. 

“Hello class! Today’s the big day,” Slughorn cheerfully announced, taking his post in the front of the room. “The potion’s practical!”

Various groans and sighs littered through the dank dungeon, but they did nothing to dampen the professor’s spirits.

“In a few very short moments, I will announce the 2 advanced potions that you will be brewing, which will receive an initial judgment from your seat partner. Additionally, it’s the end of the lunar phase today, which means the Veritaserum potion that each of us brewed on the new moon is ready to be completed today. Extra credit goes to any student who can successfully complete and administer the Veritaserum potion to their partner, as it is an advanced potion that most students can’t complete until they finish their N.E.W.Ts. Now without further ado…” Slughorn pulled out his wand and waved it in the direction of the chalkboard. “Let’s unveil the 2 potions that we’ll be brewing today…”

Even the levitating chalk wrote with gusto as it scritch-scratched across the board. Draco rolled his eyes; this nutty professor always had the flair for unnecessary dramatics. Knowing Slughorn, the potions he chose were going to be either incredibly cliché or incredibly ridiculous.

“Cheese-based potion!” Slughorn proclaimed with a flourish.

Alright, incredibly ridiculous it was.

“And…Amortentia!” 

_And_ incredibly cliché as well. Right on the golden galleons. Perhaps Draco did have some Seer blood in him and could have a career in divination after all. If only it wasn’t the most wooly and fabricated magical discipline to exist.

“Veritaserum, Amortentia, and cheese-based potions. Has the old slug gone batty and chose these potions by closing his eyes and drawing from a hat?” Draco grumbled to himself. 

“Actually, as strange as it sounds, I think a lot of thought was put into this selection. It’s as if the first 2 potions were so cliché that he had to include cheese-based potions to throw everything off and keep the air of unpredictability,” a new voice chimed in.

Well, not that new. Even without turning around, Draco recognized the sound of her quick, purposeful footsteps and the bushy brown hair bouncing in his peripheral vision. At this point, he shouldn’t even be surprised, and he turned to her with a flat stare.

“Granger, this whole ‘appearing everywhere uninvited thing’ you’re doing is starting to get stale,” Draco stated dryly.

Granger brushed her curls out of her eyes, looking like she was trying not to roll them. It had been a few evenings since their last interaction in the library, and as Draco debated abandoning their station and taking the loss on his potion’s grade, Granger placed her hand over his. Her palm radiated warmth over the cold clamminess of his skin, her fingers curling slightly as she gently gripped him.

_Don’t go_ , her eyes beseeched, and Draco didn’t know whether it was more disconcerting that he innately understood the language of Granger, or that he was so weak to resisting her requests even when he was annoyed at her. He extricated his hand out from under her grasp, and after a moment of hesitation, proceeded to set up his cutting board and measuring supplies. From the corner of his eye, he observed that Granger gave him a tiny smile. 

“This time the fault isn’t on me but rather your former seat partner, Theo,” she pointed towards a desk in front of them, where Theo’s tall, wiry frame was indeed seated next to Blaise’s lithe, athletic build.

“The little traitor.”

“These are his words, not mine, but he thought that you could benefit from a change of pace. Something about how your eyes need to stop wandering enough for you to brew a rudimentary Shrinking Solution. Honestly, I have no idea what he means, as we’re not making any of that today.”

“I hate that git.”

“Don’t hate him too much, he talked up your potions mastery quite a bit before he stole my partner. I’ve always had to tutor Harry and Ron through this class, but it seems like Slytherins have a knack for potions. Now that Theo’s regaled you as the best potion’s master of the House, I’m even more curious about your ability. Don’t disappoint me, Malfoy.” She didn’t quite smile again, but her eyes glittered with anticipation—only Granger could be genuinely enthralled by academic prowess.

“Please Granger, don’t compare me to your academically subpar friends. I don’t need a secret book with scribbled cheats in it to pass my classes.”

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

Fuck.

Why did he say that? Now she had expectations, and he had become unwittingly invested in meeting her expectations. After all, the seal of approval from the swottiest witch in all of Hogwarts was as prestigious as a professors’, maybe even more.

For the last 5 minutes, his Amortentia sat untouched between them, its iridescent mother-of-pearl sheen glistening even in the dim light of the potion’s dungeon. Granger hastily scrawled notes, her quill feverishly scratching across several pages of parchment. She revealed no discernible expression of approval or disapproval.

Draco tapped his finger restlessly on the bench. Of all the times for this chatterbox of a witch to have nothing to say. 

“Well?” He finally caved in.

“Hold on…just putting the finishing touches on my initial assessment…” Granger said, the tip of her pink tongue slipping out and wetting her lips.

“You’re supposed to scrap some notes together, not draft an entire dissertation,” Draco drawled.

“Is that so? Then I guess you’ll find out about my impressions later after you receive your marks back from Slughorn,” she declared primly, setting down her quill and folding her paper into a neat trifold.

“No wait,” Draco reached to snatch the parchment out of her hand and she raised it out of reach.

“Oh? Curious, are we?” Granger waggled her eyebrows. Bloody hell, this witch was doing it on purpose.

But the flimsy string that was reigning in Draco’s impatience was quickly fraying, and Draco had put more effort into that Amortentia than he cared to admit.

“Yes,” he reluctantly revealed.

Like he had pressed the magic button, Granger brightened and sat up straighter, slapping down her parchment and unfolding it like a professor preparing for lecture.

“First your color was exactly on point—that classic mother-of-pearl sheen that shimmers like liquid silver. Next, the consistency was perfect, slick like oil but more viscous than that, like honey that has melted under the sun. It’s really quite impressive. And—”

As Granger prattled on and on about his potion, he couldn’t help but allow a smile. Draco had never been yelled at his parents for his marks, as they were generally good, but his parents had also never expressed any sort of praise when he delivered above and beyond exceptional. It was like his marks and academic achievements had become a rote expectation; all good marks meant was that he passed a baseline standard to exist as a Malfoy. Excelling academically wasn’t anything special, just a normal activity to continuously uphold. 

But Granger didn’t care about what he was already supposed to be, she spoke as if he had achieved something grand. Like he had done something worth being proud of. 

“—and that summarizes the key highlights that I’ve written in my very brief 3-page analysis. Shall we move on?” Granger wrapped up, already leaning towards the Veritaserum. 

“Wait, aren’t we forgetting the most important part? What do you smell?” Draco inquired, his long fingers reaching the Veritaserum vial first and pulling it out of reach. “And what about your Amortentia, I still need to critique it.”

“Oh, right,” Granger slid her potion over and then drummed her fingers on her thighs.

Her potion was of course, just as beautiful, though her mother-of-pearl sheen was a slightly darker shade of fuchsia. “Did you add a bit more rose petal to increase the petal to thorns ratio?” he observed.

“Oh, you noticed,” Granger said, a bit surprised, “yes, according to some of the theories I’ve read, an extra pinch of rose petals should make the scents stronger. This is useful when someone’s Amortentia has parallel smells that make individual scents difficult to discern. What do…what do you smell?”

Draco kept the potion at arms-length and wafted the spiraling scents towards his nose. Burning fire wood. Tart green apples. And…cracked yellowing pages coughing out a plume of dust?

“You first,” he shot back, “you already evaluated everything else about my potion.”

“Hmm…it’s not a very distinct smell for me,” she dawdled, picking at the cuticles of her unpainted nails.

Draco snorted. “Don’t try to pull that on me. And you’re shite at lying. So? Freshly mown grass, new parchment, and what’s the last scent?”

Granger blinked, then watched him curiously. “How do you remember my first two scents? I only ever mentioned them once, and it was years ago.”

Fuck. How did he remember?

“Never mind that,” he brushed off. “Look Granger, I need to write on this piece of parchment what your 3 Amortentia scents are to turn into Slughorn. Are you going to be able to sleep at night knowing that you’re the catalyst behind my academic demise?”

“Oh, alright fine, no need for the dramatics,” Granger huffed, crossing her arms over her stomach. “It’s freshly mown grass, new parchment…and sweat.”

Draco wrinkled his nose. “Sweat?”

“Yes…sweat. I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous, but I can’t deny the smell.”

“Actually, it makes sense,” Draco mused.

“Pardon me?” 

“Considering your taste in men—Krum, Weasley, and even the arsehat _McLaggen_ — you seem to favor the oaf-ish quidditch jocks. Sweat and the inability to read are apparently the qualities you look for.”

If there had been something in Granger’s hand, it no doubt would have been chucked at his head. Unfortunately for Granger, she only held a nice quill that she still needed to write with, and could only glare in response.

“Moving on…” she gritted out, not exactly able to refute him, “what did you smell? I need to write your 3 scents on this piece of parchment as well.”

“Eager, aren’t you? Very well…firewood, green apples, and…” he paused— why had he smelled cracked yellow pages? Memories of their last encounter in the library and the ancient occlumency books surfaced to mind. Oh no…this was something he needed to keep close to his chest.

“Garlic,” he finished with the first strong smell that came to mind.

Unsurprisingly, Granger fixed him with a shrewd frown, so Draco straightened up and repeated more confidently, “Firewood, green apples, and garlic.”

“Garlic,” Granger deadpanned. “You’re telling me that you’re attracted to the smell of garlic?”

“Of course. Now let’s carry on, the time you took writing your 100-page thesis on my potion has made us fall behind,” Draco closed the subject like shutting an open tome. The green slush of his cheese-based potion sparkled besides his cauldron, so he took the wedge-shaped potion and nestled it in Granger’s hands.

“Time for the cheese-based potion,” Draco declared. 

Still lost in her thoughts, Granger absently uncorked the potion, and omitting the process of a thorough initial assessment, tipped back her head and indulged in a generous gulp. The liquid didn’t even touch the back of her throat before she sputtered, coughing out the chunky backwash into the same container. Draco winced, she probably deeply regretted skipping that initial assessment.

“I deeply regret skipping my initial assessment,” Granger stated, rolling her tongue and scrunching her nose. “If I had properly smelled that thing, I would have realized you just crushed up a hunk of cheese and blended it with expired milk.”

“Isn’t that what a cheese-based potion is?”

“No!” She gaped at him as if he had scandalized her. Considering the pale shade of chartreuse she was now sporting, perhaps his potion had.

Draco raised his hands in surrender. “Alright, so I may have never brewed a cheese-based potion before. Sue me for investing my time in learning actually useful potions. Is it more practical to perfect the Antidote to Common Poisons or the cheese-based potion?”

While swishing cleansing water in her mouth, she leveled Draco with an unimpressed glare. Never did he think that somehow could appear so intimidating while their cheeks puffed out like a chubby chipmunk’s. After she finished washing out his culinary insult of a potion, Granger scooted her cheese-based potion towards Draco and ordered him to try it.

Contrary to the congealed green of his potion, hers was a dandelion yellow and smelled savory, with just a hint of hickory smoke. Nevertheless, Draco erred on the side of caution and took a tepid sip.

Flavor burst through his mouth like a popped ball of colored paint. The cheese had been churned into a frothy salt foam and brightened with notes of pine nuts, and the whole concoction somehow managed to stay light and refreshing.

“Fuck,” Draco murmured.

Granger, who had been recovering from his potion by resting her head on her arm, bolted up to a sitting position. Worry danced in her large brown eyes as she anxiously awaited his review.

“I have nothing bad to say about this,” he begrudgingly conceded. If she wanted to, Granger could have a successful career as a dairy-based potions manufacturer, but there was no need to inflate her head anymore, now was there? 

She smirked, apparently the key to her full recovery was the reassurance that she was brilliant. “Malfoy, is that a compliment I hear there?”

“We should move on,” he swiftly averted her question.

Uncorking the Veritaserum, he carefully pipetted 3 drops into a cup of water and pushed it towards her.

Granger picked up the cup, a pleased blush still fresh across her cheeks. Before her mouth reached the lip of the cup, however, she paused and set it back on the table. “Wait Malfoy, what questions are you going to ask me?”

A hint of a mischievous grin played at his lips. “What, scared Granger?”

“No I—,” she swirled the odorless clear liquid idly, “It’s just that I have a request. Can you…can you ask me why I want to see your dreams.”

Like a shower of rain drenching a candle, Draco’s amusement extinguished and an annoyed scowl took its place. “You can’t be serious, Granger. We’re not discussing that.”

“Please, you can ask me whatever you wish before then,” she implored, getting the last word in before she downed the cup of Veritaserum water in one gulp.

Gods, she was so bossy. As if he would fall into that trap. Draco rubbed his hands together, where to begin…

“Potter or Weasley.”

Granger tilted her head, eyebrows knitting together. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to elaborate.”

“If there was a troll attacking both of them and you could only save one from a painful and gruesome demise, who would you choose?”

“Y-You can’t ask that!” she protested.

“I can, and I already did. Now again, if there was a troll attacking both Potter and Weasley and you could only choose one person’s life to save, who would you choose?”

Her lips pressed into a thin line, and she tried to struggle for a few more seconds before heaving a resigned sigh.

“…Ron.”

Draco placed his hand under his chin and tapped his fingers thoughtfully. “Really? Potter saved the world, and you’d still choose Weasley?”

“Harry will find a way to either escape or subdue the troll. Even when the odds appear impossible, he somehow always finds the solution. Besides, Ron has such an inferiority complex against Harry and it’d only make matters worse if I chose Harry again.”

“Again?”

Granger pursed her lips. “Next question.”

“Very well,” he graciously let it go, but filed the tidbit of information for further evaluation. “Who do you consider the most attractive wizard at Hogwarts?”

To his surprise, Granger smiled and casually waved her hand. “Oh, that’s easy. Blaise.”

Draco’s face fell, somehow annoyed by this answer.

“Blaise. As in Blaise Zabini?” he stated blandly.

“Who else could it be? It’s not like there’s more than one at Hogwarts. Yes, Blaise. As in Blaise Zabini, your friend and the wizard seated over there next to your other friend, Theo,” she explained as if he needed the full rundown.

“Why?”

“Why?” she parroted, arching an eyebrow. “Well, have you seen his face? It’s incredibly symmetrical. And his eyes, they’re extraordinarily dark black, but not just any black, they gleam like obsidian gems. His lashes are also so long and pretty, I swear they’re more curled than mine.”

“Alright, I get the point.”

“Oh, don’t be petty because someone else is getting praise. Besides, just because I consider Blaise attractive does not necessarily mean that _I’m_ attracted to him.”

“No, that’s exactly what it means. And I’m the least petty person I know. All of my previous schoolboy transgressions were justified.”

Granger laughed, though she made a valiant effort to stifle it to chuckles. “ _You_ were the one who posed the question of who I deemed most physically appealing.”

“It’s unkind to remind others of their mistakes.”

“I didn’t even get started on his body yet. He’s fit, but not excessively so. Maybe you were onto something when you noted that I may have a preference for a certain athletic build.”

“Do you forget that I was a quidditch player as well?” As soon as the words left his mouth, he wanted to reel them back in like a fishing line. He kept up his calm countenance, but clenched his jaw tightly. These were dangerous waters he was treading in, and he wasn’t going to leave himself marooned.

Oblivious to Draco’s spiraling thoughts, Granger pondered with a far-off look in her eyes. “Well, when you’re not being a tosser you can be quite handsome. Plus, your arse admittedly looked quite nice in muggle athletic attire.”

A life preserver drifted towards him, a thin white cord unfurling mere inches from his hands.

Draco leaned forward, propping his elbow on the bench and resting his cheek on his palm. A haughty smirk curved up his face. “You’ve been looking at my arse, have you?”

“Yes, how could I not?” Belatedly realizing what her truth had revealed, Granger flushed beet red. She swatted at his arm. “Can you move on from this!”

He chuckled, feeling all sorts of smug. “Have it your way. Granger, what is your opinion on Hagrid as our Care of Magical Creatures professor?”

She sputtered out a cough, her face pinching as she struggled to control her expression from souring.

“Oh, come on…sneaky Slytherins,” she rubbed her neck uncomfortably, “while Hagrid is a dear friend and I adore him very much…I um…have some concerns about his teaching methods. As much of an overdramatic whiny prat you were in our third year, it wasn’t exactly the safest decision to bring wild Hippogriffs to school. There are 11-year-old children in this castle! Honestly, Dumbledore needed to do better with his professor vetting process.”

Draco doubled over in laughter, slapping his knee in an uncharacteristic display of amusement. “This is rich Granger, you should take Veritaserum every day.”

“Please don’t tell Hagrid I said that. It’d break his heart,” she pleaded. 

“Every Slytherin has his price,” he retorted loftily. Although deep down inside, he knew he wouldn’t tell the lumbering groundskeeper or breathe a word of this conversation to any other soul. These truths from Granger were for him, and him only.

Draco quieted and idly twirled the quill in his fingers. A memory pressed against the forefront of his mind, something that he had pushed aside, but not quite forgotten.

In a rare instance of curiosity overtaking self-preservation, Draco decided to ask the question that had been quietly waiting, “Granger…that day in the library. Why were you collecting Daily Prophet clippings on my family?”

She interlaced her fingers and twiddled her thumbs, but otherwise didn’t look as uncomfortable as he expected.

“What you interpreted that day in the library was a misunderstanding, honest. I wanted to explain it to you that day on the quidditch pitch, but I was furious with you and there was so much else to discuss. After the Battle of Hogwarts, while I was vaguely aware of the Malfoy circumstances, thinking about Draco Malfoy wasn’t exactly the highest priority in my head. But then on that first day in the library…when I saw you huddled against the bookshelf covered in bruises and dripping in blood… it just hit me that there was a whole other side to this war that I had forgotten existed.” Her eyes softened, as if she had painted bruises and splattered blood on his face and was re-living the first encounter.

“At first I thought it was just a mild fascination. I realized that despite knowing you for 7 years, I knew very little about you. Whenever I have a gap in knowledge, it’s like a pothole in a cracked road that needs to be paved. But it’s not like I could have just come up to you and _asked_ you about your life. We were more than nothing but less than friendly, and even I’m not that recklessly optimistic to believe that my intentions would have been well-received. So, I researched— I read, I collected, and I pieced together a story from the scraps. As I was doing this and learning more about your family…I started to feel sad, for a lack of a better word.”

She looked down and fiddled with the edge of her sleeve, tugging it lower on her wrist. “My feelings changed from trying to solve the mystery of your story, to realizing that you’re just a human, a young teenager trying to survive in the aftermath of other people’s choices. It was like you had become another friend for me to worry about, although only in this version that I created in my head. If we had met at a different time in our lives and hadn’t spent so much time hating each other…maybe things could have been different.”

Draco patiently waited for her to finish, never once interrupting her explanation. He silently absorbed her words. A few walls in his head dissolved to dust, like they had been built out of sand instead of stones, and he allowed himself to step through his own doors.

He sighed, feeling like he had played right into her hand but couldn’t entirely hate her for it. “Granger…why do you want to see my dreams?”

She smiled, her eyes warm and a bit triumphant. “Two reasons. First, I _am_ worried, and I do want to help. I sincerely believe that if I can understand the content of your dreams then I can be better equipped to help you. Secondly…I want to do it for me as well.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“That night that Harry, Ron, and myself were captured in your Manor and then escaped, I’m assuming that Voldemort wasn’t very happy and it must have been a very difficult memory,” she began hesitantly.

The Dark Lord certainly wasn’t happy, but Granger’s torture had far eclipsed the details of their punishment.

“So…I was thinking, maybe you had a dream about that day, and maybe a snippet of that included what happened to me on your drawing room floor.” She wrung her hands together nervously. “I want to see it.”

Draco’s entire demeanor darkened, his body tensed and he coiled like a cat prepared to pounce. “Why the _hell_ would you want to see that?” he spat angrily.

Granger, however, remained irritatingly calm. “I know it sounds unconventional, but I think I’ve been afraid of the memory and have let it grow and fester into something more powerful than it should be. I need to finally face my fears and defeat it. My own memories of that night are very…” she paused, her breath hitched and she scrunched up her face, “my own memories are very dispersed. A lot of fading in and out of blackness and the overwhelming sensation of blinding pain.”

Frowning hard, Draco crossed his arms over his chest and looked away.

Trying a different tactic, Granger lowered her voice to a gentle, nearly pleading tone, “I know that this is a really hard thing to ask for, but please Malfoy, you’re the only person I can turn to for this. You don’t even have to be with me when I see it.”

“Granger…it’s not going to do you any good to see the memory of that night. It’ll be too much,” he discouraged her once again. 

She placed her hands on her hips. “Malfoy, I _lived_ through it already, I can handle witnessing it a second time.”

“I reiterate that this isn’t a good idea.”

Her shoulders slumped and she seemed to deflate, for once appearing like the small, petite woman she actually was. “You’ve bullied and ridiculed me for most of my life. You threatened to have me dead and almost accomplished it. It’s the least you could do to help me move on. Please Malfoy, it’s been months and months of sleepless nights. And I can’t run and hide and occlude as well as you do.”

God damn it. Looking at her from this close proximity, he couldn’t deny the dark circles rimming her eyes and the sunken hollows of her cheeks. She always knew how to skewer his heart and leave the arrow bleeding in it. Malfoy gripped the potion’s bench so tightly that the smooth stone vibrated between his hands. Sweat pooled in the palm of his hands and coated the web of skin between each finger. 

“I’ll think about it,” he finally gritted out.

The rest of the potions class elapsed in silence as the two of them cleaned up their stations while ignoring the other. As he shouldered his bookbag and was leaving for the door, Draco saw Granger pocket her own potion of Veritaserum rather than ask him to try it. Hmm… how peculiar of her to forgo an opportunity for extra credit. 

He left the potions classroom without another word to her, but halfway down the hallway to the Slytherin dungeons, he felt a subtle tug on his robes.

“Meet me in the Artefact room tonight at 9 pm if you change your mind. I’ll borrow a pensieve from Headmistress McGonagall,” she mumbled to him as she walked past, head held up and chin high. 

As soon as Draco returned to his dorms and shut the door behind him, he cast a _Silencio_ spell over himself and emitted a strangled, earth-shattering scream. He carded his hands through his messy blond fringe and flopped onto his bed, too exhausted to even shrug off his robes or peel off his shoes.

This girl was quite literally going to drive him to the ends of the earth.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: After 7 chapters I figured it's about time some classes occurred lol. What I like about the Dramione dynamic is that while it's universal that Hermione is smart, I think Draco can better understand the rarity of that sort of brilliance. Of course Harry and Ron would describe Hermione as smart, but Draco being smart himself, makes it more likely for him to recognize the incredible level of intelligence and hard work it takes to be at Hermione's level. It's like we all know that doctors are smart, but if you're a doctor yourself then you'd recognize and respect the famous experts in your field.
> 
> Also someone asked me last chapter about what happened at the end of chapter 5, so I wrote a drabble in Hermione's perspective. :) 
> 
> x-x-x-x-x-x
> 
> x-x-x
> 
> “Do you want to go up to your room?” 
> 
> Hermione nearly lost her grip on the thin broom handle and plummeted to her 200 kilometers per hour demise. 
> 
> Was she being propositioned? Was Draco Malfoy propositioning her? Sure, it was her birthday and perhaps those activities were commonplace on this special occasion, but the two of them tottered on the blurry line between enemies and reluctant acquaintances. Less than an hour ago she had slapped him! 
> 
> Unless…Malfoy was into that stuff? Which was a little surprising but not entirely unbelievable…
> 
> “Granger, you alive? Did you wobble yourself off the broom back there?” Draco droned sarcastically, he turned his head and regarded her with neutral grey eyes. 
> 
> It still felt like a snowfall in June to have Malfoy look at her without hatred or disgust. He only gave her calm expressions at best, and was cantankerous more often than not, but…he looked at her like she was a human now. 
> 
> “What?” Hermione squeaked. Gods she was so awkward, luckily the cover of darkness could conceal her flaming blush. 
> 
> “Do you want to be dropped off at your room or at your party? You didn’t think we’d be flying out here until sunrise, did you?” 
> 
> Oh…so that’s what he meant… 
> 
> She didn’t reply for a beat, and in that window of flailing time, Draco turned towards her with a hint of amusement in the curve of his lip. Sneaky Slytherins— they always caught on to things Gryffindors couldn’t hide. 
> 
> “What exactly did you think I meant? My my, for a little Miss Golden Girl, you seem to have a wealth of gutter thoughts.”


	8. Stayed up with you all night

* * *

This was a mistake. He should leave.

The thoughts spun themselves over and over in his head like an infinite revolving door, yet he was here, pacing back and forth through this accursed corridor. His shoes clicked on the cracked stone floor.

How had he been wrangled into being here? Even entertaining the idea went against his notions of self-preservation and he was downright bordering on _Gryffindor_ behavior _._

Maybe he had reduced capacity for rational thought after the war. Maybe having his nose broken so many times had smashed something in his brain too. Maybe…he had been more drawn in by Granger’s preaching than he had thought possible. After all, if there was anyone in the world who knew all the right answers and the right things to do, wouldn’t it be Hermione Granger?

No one else would ever so much as blink at Draco’s struggles with reconciling his past hell with his present living hell.

He got what was coming for him.

He deserved it.

Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater.

But here she was, dangling her hand precariously into the yawning chasm he idled in. All he had to do was take it. 

“You know, I can see you,” Granger’s voice quipped from behind him.

Draco whipped around to see her leaning against the door to the Artefact room with her arms crossed loosely over her chest. Before he could swear or offer a snarky comeback, she grabbed his upper arm and hauled him into the room.

Dust assaulted his throat and he immediately began hacking out coughs. The Artefact room was a small, square room, barely larger than a broom cupboard, and was filled to the brim with random objects— was that a human skull? _Multiple_ human skulls? A mishmash of unidentifiable, but certainly unpleasant, odors permeated the room and his face soured like he had eaten a rotten lemon. In a messy scrawl, the name “Ben Copper” was carved into the wooden cabinet, who the hell was that?

“If you’re already going to look so suspicious pacing back and forth in the corridor, then you might as well come in.” With a nearly imperceptible flick of her wand, she cast a _Scourgify_ to remove the layer of dirt coating all the furniture. What a show off. 

“Granger, I didn’t agree to your ludicrous request,” Draco snapped, starting on the defensive.

“Yet you came, and I let you pace and ruminate for a full 5 minutes before pulling you in here. It’ll be quick, I promise, and we’ll both be out of here in less time than your dawdling took,” Granger answered matter-of-factly.

Draco’s hands repeatedly opened and closed themselves into fists.

“Are you absolutely certain this is what you want?” Draco needed to ascertain at least one more time.

She nodded resolutely. “Yes, I want to face my fears, and I want to help _you_ face yours as well.”

“I never asked for your help.”

“Then don’t look at it as help. Just someone who’s going to be there. Malfoy, can you honestly tell me that you want to be alone with ghosts for all your life?”

His fingers twitched on the side of his pants, the heat from each finger pad seeping through the fabric and onto his legs. His shoulders sagged with the weight of a thousand iron walls dragging down his spine. It seemed that he was destined to always lose against Granger.

“One dream,” he surrendered, “and it’ll be a short clip, just that one moment and then we’re out of there.”

“That’s sufficient,” she readily agreed, eager to get a move on before he found more reasons to change his mind.

With a resigned sigh, Draco pointed his wand to his head and concentrated on the specific tendrils of memory to siphon. Once the tip of his wand glowed silver, he deposited the silky strands of memory into the waiting pensieve and watched as they unfurled like swimming koi fish.

“You can go first, but I’m coming in right after you,” Draco said and raised his arm in the vague direction of the pensieve. He twirled his wand in his hand— was he really ready to see all these ghosts again? Perhaps he had been too swept up in Granger’s optimistic enthusiasm, and this was still very much a terrible idea.

But he had little time to dwell on this. As Granger nodded and dipped her wand into the swirling liquid, he had no choice but to follow suit, holding his breath as he dunked his mind under an icy waterfall of memories. 

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

_“So, Draco my dear. I had this brilliant thought. Why don’t we give a scar to the mudblood here so Potter and his cronies can match, hm?” Bellatrix croons._

No. This was the wrong dream. Panic coursed through him, and his eyes quickly found purchase on Granger hovering nearby the alternate versions of themselves. In a few short strides he was in front of her and hissing in her face, “This isn’t the right one, something went wrong. Let’s leave Granger, now.”

But Granger wasn’t listening, and Draco followed her line of vision to see Bellatrix looking expectedly at his alternate-self. Bellatrix tapped at her wrist and motioned towards the prone Hermione on the floor.

_“There will be just enough space here to write a reminder of what the girl is. This goes without saying of course, but make it a permanent curse, won’t you? It wouldn’t do for the girl to have delusions that she’s anything but a mudblood.”_

_Draco cringes, but at his aunt’s expectant look, he falls to his knees and sinks obediently onto the cold floor._

Before Draco could explain that this wasn’t what it seemed, Granger gripped his wrist and silenced him without uttering a word. Her brown eyes calmly held his.

“Malfoy, I know this isn’t real. Even if this did happen, I know that you would never have wanted to intentionally hurt me like this,” Granger stated, leaving Draco stunned speechless. How could she trust him? How could she proclaim her faith in him with such resounding confidence?

_“Well Draco? Is there a problem?” Bellatrix cuts in icily, “There’s no need to stare at the girl all night. Don’t make me think that you fancy the bint.”_

_“Draco,” Hermione grit out his name without opening her mouth. “Carve that word onto my wrist already. Stop dawdling.”_

He watched his alternate-self hesitantly move his wand over Hermione’s wrist, hands shaking so violently that he’s surprised the wand didn’t vibrate out of his grasp and clatter to the floor. He watched Bellatrix stomp over and mercilessly slash Hermione, and he watched himself insist that he finish the job.

Draco turned around. “Let’s leave, Granger,” he tried again, pulling at the arm that she was still holding onto.

When she spun towards him, he was not prepared for the soft empathy in her expression. “I’m sorry that you had to dream of yourself doing that,” she whispered.

Draco had no words to respond with, but he didn’t need to as the room shifted and they were pulled and stretched into another scene.

x-x-x

_“Cissy, we don’t really have a need for this filthy mudblood, do we? It’s only Potter that our Lord has an interest in.”_

_His mother recoils ever so slightly, but Narcissa speaks her next words with measured nonchalance, “Now Bella, there’s no need to be rash. The girl’s mind may hold information that is of interest to our Dark Lord. Why don’t we put her in the cellar for today? Now that the girl knows what fate awaits her if she continues to withhold information, she may reconsider her silence.”_

Oh no, Draco watched his alternate-self freeze and become sickly pale, which was a feat in itself considering how pallid his skin tone already was. 

“Granger, I’m warning you, the ending of this isn’t pretty,” Draco urgently told her.

She pressed her lips into a thin line. “I’m going to die here, aren’t I?”

“How…how did you know?”

“Because I would do anything to protect Harry and Ron,” she answered simply. 

As if on cue, jets of green light burst from the tip of Bellatrix’s wand and Hermione’s eyes rolled back before her entire body grew limp. It was an anticlimactic and quiet affair, almost morbidly peaceful, but the real Draco was seconds away from retching on the floor.

Granger’s warm hand slipped into his and she interlaced their fingers together. She gave his hand a firm squeeze, and canted her head towards his alternate-self, and he saw the crushing devastation that had broken his walls and demolished his doors. His alternate-self’s face was ruddy and scrunched up, and the waifish boy struggled to keep his sobs silent as his body wracked with tremors. His mother was watching him— her eyes shiny and glimmering blue under the grey light of the drawing room— and Narcissa pulled him into her arms and gently stroked his hair.

“I’m not really dead,” Granger reassured gently, “I’m right here."

The scene before them dissolved, and they were whirled into another memory.

x-x-x

_Bellatrix hovers over Hermione’s prone body, alternating between unnerving whispers and furious screaming, gnashing her teeth mere centimeters over Hermione’s face. Hermione’s wrists are bent at unnatural angles, Bellatrix’s vice grip no doubt leaving a trail of bruises down her pale, white skin._

_Bellatrix utters the Cruciatus curse— hatred straining every syllable, flecks of spit spraying straight into Hermione’s eyes. A terrible shriek rips through Hermione’s throat, her voice vibrating every surface in the room as she convulses on the floor, her hands and feet flailing against the woodgrain floors in an uneven staccato. Draco visibly flinches._

With their hands clasped together, both of them simultaneously stiffened as Hermione’s screams reverberated in the drawing room. As the screams devolved to faint whimpers, Draco could feel Granger’s fingers quivering in his grasp.

He watched Bellatrix advance forward and knew what was going to happen next. Forgoing rational thoughts and boundaries and self-preservation, Draco shielded Granger away from the scene and sheltered her in his arms. He rested his chin on the top of her head and kept his voice low and steady, “Granger, this is the past. Bellatrix is dead and this will never happen again.”

She didn’t respond, but he felt her body marginally relax into his embrace.

“I think this is more than enough for today. More than enough for the rest of our lives. We’re leaving now.” Draco announced.

Focusing his magic, Draco channeled the both of them out of the pensieve and they were sucked into a winding tunnel. They were unceremoniously dropped back into the musty Artefact room and collided with each other in a tangle of limbs. Both of them scrambled to stand, with Granger recovering first and covertly wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand, although the motion wasn’t missed by Draco.

“Are you…alright?” he asked carefully as he brushed wrinkles out of his clothing.

“I admit…that wasn’t what I was expecting. Your memory, or should I say memories, of the night were far more vivid than I anticipated. But yes, I’m fine,” she replied quickly.

“I didn’t mean for all of those scenes to be there. When I was doing the spell, it must have spliced moments from all the dreams and created that bloody mess we just saw there.”

“It’s fine. I got what I needed.” Granger cleared her throat, straightening her already-straightened robes. Not once had she looked at him. “I…think I’m going to bed tonight. We can pick up tomorrow but tonight I think…bed,” she stumbled, and when she tried to take a step, she swayed to the side and lurched against the cabinet.

Draco instinctively laid his hands out to catch her, but she had already steadied herself.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she repeated.

“Granger…” he started to say, but trailed off uncertainly. Regret sunk through him like a swallowed stone. This had been a terrible idea. Seeing his dreams had only gouged her wounds with salt.

“I’ll see you later, Malfoy,” she bid her farewell, her face still fastidiously turned away from him.

“Granger, wait.” 

But her hand was already closed around the door handle, and she vanished without a backwards glance.

Draco groaned. He massaged his temples and took a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. Fuck. A second later, Draco burst out of the Artefact room and trotted down the hallway to catch up with Granger. It turned out that he didn’t need to look too far.

At the end of the hallway and at the mouth of the stairway leading to the towers, Granger huddled against the wall, her face in her hands as she hugged her knees. Draco knelt down, cautiously approaching her like she was a rabbit he didn’t want to spook.

“Granger…” was all he seemed to be able to say. Years of pureblood etiquette should have prepared him with more eloquent words, but they all fell away when he looked at her.

She lifted her face up and gave him a watery smile. “I guess I thought that at this point and with everything I’ve been through, I should be immune to these sorts of things. But I guess…I guess I’m not as fine as I thought.”

Her lip wobbled. She didn’t finish her sentence.

But it was fine, because Draco knew how to finish it for her.

“You’re not more than human, and being the Golden Girl or the brightest witch of her age isn’t going to change that.” Draco crawled to the space besides her and leaned against the wall, observing the unspoken rule of 10 centimeters of space. His long legs stretched out in front of them, and he strangely couldn’t bring himself to care that his designer pants were on the cold, dirty floor. “Anyone who saw their own torture 3 times in a row is going to feel fucked up. In fact, it’s quite fucked up that we even did this.”

She chuckled weakly and used her index fingers to wipe the tears that trailed down her cheeks. “I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard. I was being insufferable, wasn’t I?”

“You can be,” he didn’t deny her.

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly, then sighed. “I thought that I was ready to see it again. To get a move on with my life. I’m so tired of feeling stuck. I’m so tired period, Malfoy,” she ran her hand through her hair, absently playing with the frayed tips. “I just want to go somewhere peaceful and rest. If only the library was still open.”

An idea struck him like a silver lining— while the library was closed, there was somewhere else they could still go.

“Granger, I want to take you somewhere.” At her apprehensive look, he elaborated, “it’s a good place, I promise. Far superior to this cold and dirty floor where all the children of Hogwarts muck it up with their muddy shoes.” Alright, so he did care about his pants a bit.

This time, Draco extended his hand out to her. “Can I ask you to follow me?” 

She paused, the gears and cogs of trust and mistrust no doubt churning through her head. But then she nodded her assent, and placed her hand in his.

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

Little had changed since he had last been here, and he thanked the bloody stars that they didn’t need to go through some Death-Eater-dummy-trap to get here again.

As the large door to the Room of Requirement quietly clicked behind them, Granger gasped and put her hands to her lips.

“Malfoy…what is this place? It’s wonderful!” she exclaimed, crossing into the room and absorbing her new surroundings.

“The room itself is a re-creation of the Malfoy safehouse in France. But the Room of Requirement has re-decorated it…”

“With an explosion of red and gold? It looks like Godric Gryffindor himself upchucked all over here,” Granger noted as she sank into one of the squashy red arm chairs.

Draco shrugged, it wasn’t like he could tell her this room was created with her preferences and desires in mind. By _him_. Luckily, Granger quickly moved on from the unusually burgundy color palette to fawn over the books.

“ _Hogwarts, A History_? And it’s a first edition?” Her eyes lit up like she had found buried treasure on a deserted island. She might as well have, with the way she cradled the book and ran her fingers reverently over the spine. “I didn’t know that anyone else in this school had ever read what is ironically, the most important book in this school.”

“Do you really think that my parents would have allowed me to attend school without reading that thing? I must have read that book cover to cover at least 5 times before I even stepped foot onto Hogwarts,” he replied wryly. A second squashy red arm chair had appeared since his last visit, and he settled into that one, facing towards her. 

When Draco looked up, Granger’s brown eyes sparkled at him as if he had accomplished something magnificent. 

“Yes Granger, I do read books,” he deadpanned, and motioned towards the mahogany bookshelf behind her. “I have read most of those books on that shelf over there. Mostly educational, but there should be some leisure books littered here and there.”

“Alright if I take a look?” Without waiting for a response, she hopped to her feet and moved in front of the bookshelf, eagerly bouncing on her toes. 

“You can take the books down Granger, this is the Room of Requirement and not actually my house,” Draco told her as he stood up and moved towards the kitchenette. After opening the cabinets, he summoned a clean tea kettle, filled it with water, and heated it over the stove. When he returned to his arm chair and set two porcelain cups between them, Granger was already nestled in her chair with a dozen books splayed over her lap. The stone fireplace crackled to her left, basking the area with cozy warmth and the ashy smell of charring wood. Orange light danced over her relaxed face, and he hadn’t seen her so unguarded since…well he simply never had. 

“Tea?” Draco offered.

“Oh yes, thank you,” she said, and put down her copy of _Advanced Rune Translation_ to pick up her tea cup. “Chamomile?” she inquired as she blew on the hot liquid and created rippling rings.

“Yes,” he replied, picking up his own cup and inhaling the light floral scent. 

“Hm. It’s quite good,” she nodded her approval after a tepid sip, “though I think it still needs to cool down a bit. So, in the meantime, about these books.”

After gently placing the tea cup on a coaster, she organized the books into two towers that flanked her sides. “Did you really read all of these? Would you mind if we discussed some of them together? I’ve always wanted to bounce opinions off of someone, but Harry and Ron weren’t very avid readers and generally tuned me out within a few minutes.”

“Why were you friends with them again?”

“ _Because_ they saved me from a troll and you can both love your friends and have different interests from them. But enough about that…” Granger held up a book and waved it. “Can we talk about these?” 

Draco floundered with reasons to deny her innocent enthusiasm, so as usual he had no choice but agree.

“I suppose,” he heard himself say.

Part of him had wondered if he was going to deeply regret what would surely become a lecture, but as Granger dove into the discussion with genuine excitement, he felt his apprehension fall away. The next hour mostly consisted of Granger babbling about her favorite books and cross-referenced theories and beloved authors. Occasionally, Draco would chime in, but he found that he preferred it when she carried on, oftentimes divulging into a long stream-of-consciousness monologue.

Her thoughts were insightful— she considered everything from all perspectives before making her final assessments— and her voice was engaging— her passion shone clearly, and she spoke with such an eloquent cadence it was hard to believe she was only 18. This was…nice.

However, it had been a long day, and siphoning one’s traumatic memories as well as entering said traumatic memories had started to take its toll. It was when she was on the history of ghosts that Draco’s eyelids started to droop, and after one slow blink, the rest of his mind faded to black.

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

The crinkle of turning pages tipped him back into consciousness, and he blinked himself awake.

As his bleary vision shifted into focus, he noticed that there was a blanket draped over him. He examined the emerald green color and toyed with the silver embroidery. Had he fallen asleep? He could have sworn only a minute had elapsed. And what was this mass of warmth on his lap? He looked down only to see the same orange ball of fluff that had settled on his thighs last time.

“Oh you’re awake, and I see you’ve met Crookshanks,” Granger greeted him mildly.

“Crookshanks?” Draco repeated.

“My pet cat. Well, he’s half-cat and half-kneazle. He seems to like you,” she observed.

As if he knew he was being discussed, Crookshanks stretched on Draco’s lap, his long bushy tail whacking him in the face. The cat-kneazle also hadn’t been so keen on retracting his claws and his sharp nails dug like miniature spikes into Draco’s trousers.

Draco winced, stifling a yelp of pain. “Are you sure he likes me?”

Granger laughed. “Yes. Crooks is a good judge of character. If he didn’t like you then he’d be hissing at you from afar. Come here Crooks, come here boy,” she called for her pet, patting the open space next to her that wasn’t crammed with books.

With one more thump of his fluffy tail in Draco’s face, Crookshanks descended from Draco’s chair and sidled up next to his owner.

Granger scratched him behind the ears and kissed the crown of his head before turning to Draco with a sheepish smile. “Sorry I got so carried away with the books, I didn’t mean to ramble so much. But at least you got some sleep in tonight.”

“…What time is it?” Draco asked, covering his mouth as he yawned.

“4 am perhaps? A bit earlier than your usual morning start.”

His lower back ached from sleeping upright and his mouth was parched and disgustingly sticky, like he had been chewing on a moth ball. He ran his finger over the chapped skin of his lower lip and then to the rough stubble on his chin. “And you…stayed up with me all night?”

“Yes? I mean, it’s not like I was watching you sleep or anything creepy like that,” she said in a garbled rush of words, “there were just a lot of books on your shelf I haven’t read yet. Plus, it’s cozy here.” She snuggled into a ruby red blanket with gold stitches, which he noted matched his own.

“Mm.” He intoned, brain still half-asleep. “That’s surprising. I thought that you would have left.”

“Why would I have left?”

“Why would you have stayed with me?” he countered.

His question was met with an initial silence, but then he heard the rustling of blankets and the thud of Granger clapping shut her book.

“Hey Malfoy, why do we call each other by our surnames? It’s only ever Malfoy and Granger. I can count the number of times I called you by your first name on less than one hand, and you’ve never called me Hermione, not even once, to my face.”

Draco furrowed his brow; this conversation was taking a strange turn.

“I don’t know. It’s always been this way.”

“But why? I’ve known your friend Theo for less than 5 minutes and we’re already on first-name basis. Blaise, as well. Yet, I’ve known you for nearly half my life and we’re still calling each other Malfoy and Granger.”

“It’s simply who we are. Why change what’s been working for the last 7 years? I’m Malfoy and you’re Granger.”

“But you thought of me as Hermione in your dreams,” she pointed out.

Draco reflexively gripped the arm of his chair. “What are you talking about?” 

“I don’t know how to explain it…but when we were in the pensieve, it felt like I _knew_ your thoughts and emotions. You were thinking of me as Hermione.” Pulling her legs onto the chair, she crossed them into pretzel and leaned backwards in thought. “The memory was so strong, I felt like I was more _you_ than I was that girl on the floor. I felt all your pain and remorse.” 

Tangling his hands in his mussed hair, Draco heaved out a deep breath and emptied the air from his lungs.

“Granger, it’s late and you haven’t slept all night. Let’s not talk about this now.”

“Then when are we going to talk about it?” she snapped, her voice growing testy.

“Hermione.”

At the weariness in his tone, she softened her expression and dropped her shoulders.

“Draco, what are you afraid of?” She twisted her hand and gestured towards herself. “Are you afraid of facing…me?”

He didn’t respond and turned towards the fire, idly listening to the crackles of firewood and watching the swaying red-and-orange flames. 

“Because I don’t blame you for that night. It wasn’t you who used the _Cruciatus_ curse on me and carved ‘mudblood’ into my skin. It was all Bellatrix.”

Draco sucked air through his teeth, and he could feel sweat dripping slick through his palms.

“You didn’t do anything. You didn’t do anything in 3 different scenarios? Is that what you were thinking? Well, what were you _supposed_ to do? If Voldemort so much as sensed that you felt pity for a muggleborn, he would hang you and your entire family in the dining room as an example for everyone else.”

On her feet now, Hermione paced back and forth with her hands wound behind her back.

“Everyone criticizes you for your choices, but have they ever been placed in your position? Yes, you were involved in some unpleasant things. And yes, in retrospect, maybe things could have gone differently. But when it comes down to it, you’re a boy who loves his family, and in that moment, there was a madman threatening the only thing you cared to protect.”

Swallowing thickly, Draco shifted his gaze to watch her shoes rapidly pace back and forth, her footfalls leaving indents in the plush Gryffindor rug. 

His voice was hoarse when he spoke, not exactly sounding like his own, “Yet somehow, I made all the possible wrong choices. For fucks sakes, there were so many. I lead Death Eaters into Hogwarts. I caused the death of the greatest Wizard to walk this earth. I watched our classmates’ parents get murdered with my very own eyes. My bloody home was the headquarters for Voldemort’s followers. _I_ was one of Voldemort’s followers. Don’t you see everything I ended up becoming responsible for? Yet somehow, although I was able to do all that, when it came to you getting tortured on my drawing room floor, I didn’t lift a fucking finger.”

He placed his face in his hands, the heels of his palms flat against his cheekbones. “I thought that I hated you. I thought that I might feel vindicated if you got put in your place and understood your inferiority. But when I saw it happening before my eyes, I realized how very wrong I was. I hated every second of your torture. There was no enjoyment in watching your pain and suffering. The entire time I was only wishing for it to stop. And I’m sorry I was too much of a coward to stop it myself.”

She didn’t say anything nor make any noise for a stretch of time. Her feet had shuffled to a stop. The silence lingered between them, the only sounds coming from the steady pop and crackle of the fireplace. 

But then, he heard the light footsteps of Hermione moving towards him, felt her warm fingers cradling the side of his face. She was always so unafraid to come near him, so unafraid to touch him. She stroked his cheek with her thumb and said quietly, “It’s alright Draco, I understand that you’re sorry. And I forgive you. Anyone could have fallen into making the same decisions.”

“Not everyone. If you were in my place Hermione, you would have been clever enough to make everything right.”

Her next words were softer, as if they too were caressing him with a feather-light touch, “What makes you say that?”

Draco let out a breathy laugh and stated, “Do I need a reason? You’re Hermione Granger, the Golden Girl. The smartest and most morally upstanding witch in all of the Wizarding World.”

“Hmmm,” she hummed. He didn’t know how she could make even a noise sound deeply insightful. 

The wood creaked as she sat down on the floor and leaned her weight against his chair.

“Like I said before, _I_ never claimed to those things. That’s simply what other people call me. It just turned out that through a series of coincidences, a handful of good friends, and Harry’s obscene luck, I happened to wind up on the on the ‘right’ side of this war.”

Hermione tilted her head and let it drop backwards. “But I am also a girl who loves her family and her two best friends very much. In that moment, if there was a madman threatening either of the very few things I cared to protect, who knows what I would have done. We could still be having this very same conversation. Except I would be in the chair. I’m not completely good, and you’re not completely bad.”

Flipping onto her knees, she popped herself over the arm of the chair and reached for his wrist. Draco didn’t fight, allowing her to win. Pressing their arms against each other, Hermione simultaneously pushed both of their sleeves down and exposed the marks etched on their skin.

“We fought in the same war, Draco,” she echoed.

The tiniest of smiles quirked at his lips. “Are you repeating your own quotes to make this moment more poetic? You really do thrive on being cliché with the dramatics.”

Hermione inclined her head, mirroring his tiny smile. “Should the pot really be calling the kettle black?” 

His smile spread into a smirk. They settled into another lull of silence, and somewhere along the span of time, Hermione made herself comfortable and reclined onto the arm of the chair.

Draco re-initiated the conversation first, “You asked me earlier what I was supposed to do.”

“Mhmm.”

“Well this is your answer. I was supposed to do this.” He waved his hand in circles and gesticulated towards their surroundings.

“I’m afraid I need more exposition.”

“I was supposed to stop Bellatrix from cursing you. I was supposed to pick you up from the drawing room floor and take us out of the anti-apparition wards. I was supposed to apparate us to this safehouse right here. You would likely punch me first and we might get into a duel, but then we would formulate a plan and go save Potter and Weasley.”

“I might have punched you first, yes, but probably not a duel. A few hexes, maybe. A duel may take too long and we have boys in distress to rescue.”

“We would create a portkey that we’d use to escape from the dungeons. Something simple, like a coin,” Draco continued.

Hermione nodded. “I am quite handy with manipulating coins, if I do say so myself.”

“And then what?” Draco pressed, strangely desperate for her answer. “What would happen after we saved your friends?”

“Hmm…” Hermione tapped a finger to her chin, scrunching her eyes in thought. “Well, we’d all go to Shell Cottage I suppose. You might have to go through the whole punching-and-hexing routine again with Ron and Harry, but after that… I think it would have been nice to have you come along with us. We certainly could have used your insider knowledge in taking down Voldemort. Once a Death Eater, doesn’t mean always a Death Eater.” 

He didn’t know when it started. His eyesight became blurred as something warm and tingling slid down his cheeks. When he wiped at his face, wetness shone on his fingertips. A tear collected at the bottom of his chin, itchy against his scruff, and he felt the teardrop splatter mutely onto his trousers and melt into his skin. His chest tightened, a lump bobbing in his throat that would have croaked into a sob if he so much as opened his mouth. His face burned hot, and sweat made him sticky all over, but that didn’t stop Hermione from coaxing him into her side.

Hermione gently raked her fingers through his hair before trailing her hands lower to massage the juncture of his head and neck. She was blushing, the tips of her ears brightening to pink, and she was warm and soft and smelled like chamomile tea, and he didn’t know how he could have ever thought he hated her.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Please let me know what you thought of this chapter and the story so far :) I remember feeling sad in a good sort of way as I wrote this. 
> 
> Thank you again to all my readers and reviewers and I hope that you've all been enjoying Draco's journey!


	9. Underappreciated wingmen

* * *

_Sunlight falls like a slice of gold over the bed, completely bypassing the flimsy excuse for curtains they have and searing an orange glow onto his closed eyelids._

_The purpose of curtains is to block light from filtering through windows._

_Thereby, sheer curtains, which are essentially as thin as rice paper, would be utterly against this purpose._

_So then, where exactly is the practicality behind buying sheer curtains? He had voiced this very logical line of reasoning at the store, of course, only to be flabbergasted by his wife’s very illogical insistence on sheer curtains._

_“To help with getting a bright and early start to the morning,” she had asserted, but what he didn’t realize was that she had wanted direct sunlight to slap them across the face every morning. However, despite his incredibly rational objections, he had ultimately caved and agreed to what she wanted._

_Call it what you will, but he is a man who dearly loves his wife and would give her the world if she so much as asked for it.  
_

_Said wife, however, isn’t particularly interested in the world. So sheer curtains would apparently have to do._

_Soft warm lips brush his forehead, his cheeks, and finally peck his nose._

_“Draco,” she sings, and she has a beautiful melodic voice despite claiming she doesn’t like to sing, “you can’t sleep in again or else Harry is going to blame me.”_

_“Potter can sod off. Every time he wants me to be in early, we’re just doing paperwork. I work at double the speed he does, so why can’t I be there for half the time?”_

_She giggles. “That’s not how the Ministry works,” she nips his nose playfully._ _  
_

_He scrunches his face and tries to nip her back, but she ducks her head right in the nick of time. In retaliation, he throws an arm around her waist and drags her naked body against his chest._

_“Bloody hell. Who knew that becoming an Auror would be half paperwork?” He grumbles into the curve of her soft neck, which is currently dotted with love bites from the previous evening._

_“Oh, it’s not all bad, we get to see each other for lunch,” she cuddles into him, peppering more kisses onto his chest._

_Hmm…he could spend all day like this._

_Just as the thought enters his mind, however, his wife wriggles out of his grip and swings her legs over the side of the bed. She pats the mattress until her hands find purchase on a plain black V-neck, his, of course, and tugs it over her head. His favorite color scheme of black, black, and black hasn’t evolved much over the years. Her thick brown hair gets ensnared in the neck hole, and she uses one hand to pluck it free and sweep it over her shoulder._

_“Up, up, up!” She demands, brusquely yanking the comforter off of him and ambushing him with the artic freeze of a poorly-insulated room with sheer curtains._

_Reluctantly, he sits up and runs a hand through his unruly blond hair. By the time he manages to find his boxers strewn on the floor, she is already wrapped in a fuzzy blue bathrobe and pressing another kiss on his forehead._

_“If I’m still in the shower by the time you head off to work, have a wonderful day and give Harry my regards.” She bends over and gives him a chaste kiss on the lips, then knocks their foreheads together and nuzzles his nose._

_“I love you, Draco,” the words glide from her mouth effortlessly, as if she’s said them thousands of times over thousands of years. Her intelligent brown eyes are flecked with sparkles of honey-gold, and her high cheekbones are just as lovely as when she was 17._

_“I love you too, Hermione,” he returns just as easily, as if they were the most natural words in the world.  
_

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

Fuck.

Fuck, was perhaps the only word that could appropriately sum up this moment. He squeezed his eyes shut and placed his arm over his mouth to muffle his groan.

What the fuck did he just dream about.

It would have been better if it had been some physically-charged sexual escapade. Hermione was objectively quite pretty, and Draco, being a hormonal boy with minimal sexual activity over the last 2 years, could rationalize being attracted to her body. This dream, however, had skipped all the good raunchy stuff and fast-forwarded him into a life of domestic bliss and pushing paperwork with Potter.

Apparently, his dreams thought that his real desires involved being in love with Hermione and Hermione being in love with him, which if anything, was far more ridiculous than any sexual fantasy.

Gods. At least Theo and Blaise were out for breakfast around this time and couldn’t possibly have heard him. That would have been mortifying.

“Rise and shine, Malfoy!”

Ghastly bright sunlight seared into his closed eyelids as the curtains drawn around his four-poster bed were thrust open. Theo stood innocently before him; a huge grin left unconcealed on his face— a very ominous sign. The blood drained from Draco’s pale face and his toes curled. He had a terrible feeling about this.

“I called it, didn’t?” Theo proclaimed cheekily.

“What are you blathering on about, Nott? And why aren’t you at breakfast?”

Theo stepped aside and gestured towards the window. High in the sky, the sun was beaming down as a big ball of orange light. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s bloody 1 pm in the afternoon. Blaise and I have been done with breakfast for hours.”

At the mention of his name, Blaise looked up from the parchment of homework in his lap and gave a nod of acknowledgement. Beside the dark-skinned boy sat a half-finished game of Wizard-Chess, which Draco assumed Blaise and Theo were in the midst of playing.

“Fuck,” Draco repeated.

“Fuck is right, Malfoy,” Theo replied with a bemused smile. “So, are you going to admit that I was right?”

“I honestly have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” Draco stated blandly.

Throwing his hands up in the air, Theo exclaimed, “You and Granger of course! Everyone could see the sparks from kilometers away. Something good happened last night, didn’t it?”

“No,” he denied immediately, “what makes you think that?”

Theo crossed his arms over his chest, the haughty grin practically splitting his face. “Well, you were sleep talking, as you tend to have a nasty habit of doing, and you quite clearly and boldly said that you loved her. Now is there a real relationship going on here or did you just fabricate one in your head?”

Draco froze— internally, he banged his head against a wall. Just kill him now. Death would be more merciful than this conversation.

“I didn’t say that,” he tried to exude nonchalance, “you clearly misheard.”

“You did say that, and we didn’t mishear,” Blaise shot down, not even raising his gaze from his homework.

Draco gulped; his eyebrow twitched. “No. That’s impossible. Just listen to yourselves. Do you two really believe that I could have a thing for Hermione Granger?”

“Yes,” his roommates chorused simultaneously.

“It was only a matter of time,” Theo explained loftily, as if he had been newly crowned as the expert on Draco’s romantic affairs. “Can you honestly say that you’ve thought about any other woman in your life as much as you’ve thought about Granger?”

“No…but…”

“I don’t see why you’re denying it, Malfoy,” Blaise’s deep baritone voice chimed in. “Hermione is both brilliant and quite pretty. It’s understandable why men fancy her.”

“Then why don’t you date her?” Draco spat, unable to keep the bitterness from rising like a geyser. “She thinks you’re the most handsome wizard in all of Hogwarts. Maybe she fancies _you_.” 

Theo chuckled, his grin transforming into a sly smirk. “If I wasn’t sure before, I certainly am now. You were never really good at holding in your envy, Malfoy.”

Draco shot Theo a nasty glare, but if anything, Theo only grew more amused.

Blaise shrugged, completely blasé in the face of Draco’s quick temper. “Considered it, but I’m not really interested in her that way. Besides, it’d be a complete waste of time considering how obsessed she is with you.”

“Yeah, we’re all practically drowning in the unresolved sexual tension when the two of you so much as say hello,” Theo piped in.

Draco could feel himself flushing vermilion; damn his genetics for giving him such a fair skin tone that did nothing to hide his embarrassment.

“Even if we were to pursue a romantic relationship… _hypothetically_ ,” Draco emphasized the last word, shooting stern glowers to both of his roommates, “it couldn’t possibly work out. My parents would be awful to her, especially my father. Her friends all hate me. Potter literally tried killing me before. And to put it bluntly, I’m not a very nice person. I wouldn’t be able to give her the sweet fairy tale relationship she’s seeking.”

Theo clicked his tongue and wagged his finger. “There you go again, always hexing yourself in the foot before you start anything.” In a few long strides, Theo moved towards Draco’s nightstand and yanked open the drawer.

“Hey!” Draco exclaimed indignantly, reaching to shut the drawer only to have Theo slap him away. A few seconds into his quest of rudely invading Draco’s privacy, Theo’s eyes lit up and he proudly shoved a hardcover book under Draco’s nose.

_Advanced Rune Translation_ , Draco read with crossed-eyes. 

“Would anyone else be reading drab books like this besides you and Granger?”

“Why not? It’s a well-known book,” Draco defended. Theo scoffed, flapping the book like a paper fan. “Careful with that! It’s a first edition!” Deftly snatching the book out of his sort-of-friend’s grasp, Draco carefully returned it back to his drawer.

“See? No one else in this school would give a unicorn’s arse about first edition versus twentieth edition. A paperweight is a paperweight,” Theo pointed out.

“And she gave you a gift. It’s muggle, yet you took care of it well,” Blaise noted, jabbing his thumb towards the chair where the muggle athletic apparel sat neatly pressed and folded.

Blaise’s sharp black eyes glinted as the realization dawned on him. “She went running with you, didn’t she? Who in their right mind would go jogging with you at 5 am in the morning if they weren’t at least a little bit interested? Come on, Malfoy. Even you can’t be this daft.”

Draco scowled and began collecting his Slytherin robes and shoes. He needed to get out of here now. Who would have thought that Blaise and Theo would turn out to be gossiping school girls?

“C’mon Malfoy,” Theo sing-songed, “since you’re so hellbound on listing all the reasons why it’d all crash and burn, we’re just trying to remind you why it _could_ work. You really should be more grateful to us. Wingmen are so underappreciated. It’s hard work putting up with your prickly personality, you know.”

Draco paused— the mattress squeaked as he plopped heavily back onto his bed. He reluctantly sighed and admitted, “This is Hermione Granger we’re talking about here. Number one most eligible witch in the entire world. She could choose to be with anyone.”

Theo sniffed as Blaise rolled his eyes.

“So what? Was that supposed to be your grand epiphany? That was obvious from the beginning of this story. You’re not saying anything new,” Theo lamented.

Blaise set down his essay and fixed Draco with a cool stare. “The only difference now is that you realized you want her to choose _you_.”

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

“You know what, I think I can root for it,” an unfamiliar voice rumbled by his ear. 

A splatter of soil plopped from Draco’s trowel as his shoulders hitched in surprise.

“Excuse me?” Draco said carefully, his brow furrowed in confusion as he turned to see Neville Longbottom give him an encouraging smile.

“You know, I ship it,” Longbottom elaborated, as if that explained anything.

“What?”

“Hm…maybe I’m not using the terminology correctly. Perhaps I ‘boat’ it?”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to get at with this nautical nonsense,” Draco stated flatly.

Longbottom chuckled and inclined his head towards the other side of the room. “I’m trying to tell you that I think you and Hermione may make a good couple,” Longbottom dropped causally, as if he had not just suggested that one of his best friends should date his former bully.

Turning back to his pot, Longbottom gently patted the soil around his sapling of Dittany and continued, “Of course, my initial reaction was that it was a strange pairing pulled out of nowhere, but then the whole Berrow thing happened. I’ve never seen you so furious, and never in a million years would I have guessed that your face was purpling because a pureblood Slytherin called Hermione…that word. So, I got to thinking, maybe it wouldn’t be so strange after all.”

Draco frowned as he repotted his Dittany sapling, dumping in soil with far more force than necessary. “Alright, which one of those 2 wankers put you up to this. Was it Nott or Zabini?” 

“What do Theo and Blaise have to do with this?” Longbottom inquired.

“Don’t try to act so daft, Longbottom. The two of them have been on my case all day, and now they’re even enlisting _her_ friends to partake in this rubbish?”

The Longbottom of old may have cowered from Draco’s biting tone, but this updated Longbottom simply placed his hands placatingly in front of him. “Easy there Malfoy, I don’t think I’ve interacted with either Theo or Blaise this entire school year. I figured this out on my own.”

“Oh yeah? How’s that?”

“Well, for one, you’ve looked at her 15 times during this one Herbology class.”

At the mention, Draco instinctively raised his head to watch Hermione chastise the female Weasley over her reckless re-potting technique. Patches of dirt soiled Hermione’s robes and cheeks, but she paid it no need as she focused on her lecture. He honed in on Hermione’s mouth moving in articulate, well-enunciated shapes, her lips pink and pouty as Weasley ignored the advice and roughly tugged at her sapling anyways. God, was he even starting to find her _nagging_ hot? 

“And two, you got so flustered with this conversation that you poured dirt all over your poor plant,” Longbottom explained.

Glancing at his handiwork, he begrudgingly acknowledged that his sapling had indeed been buried under a pyramid of dirt.

“Fuck,” Draco muttered, apparently it was his word of the day.

“A Hogsmeade trip is coming up, why don’t you ask her to go with you?” Longbottom suggested as he sprinkled water over his perfectly potted plant.

If Draco had been consuming any liquids, he would have promptly sprayed it all over his robes. “Why the hell would I do that?”

Shrugging, he replied, “Just a thought. Ginny has quidditch practice that day, and I’m going on a date with Hannah Abbott. Hermione would be all alone.”

“That’s not my problem,” Draco stated as he focused on swiping the mini mountain of soil off his Dittany.

“Not your problem, no. But it could be your opportunity.”

Breathing hotly through his nose, Draco slammed his hands on the table as he gave up on salvaging his plant. “Longbottom, have you gone mental? Why would you support a doomed relationship between your best friend and myself? I’m quite possibly the worst person she could end up with.”

Longbottom’s eyes, gold and hazel under the light streaming in through the greenhouse walls, softened tiredly around the edges. Suddenly, it hit him that this boy had also seen his fair share of trauma and was scarred well beyond his years. They may have been on opposite sides, but it was the same coin.

“People change. I’m the living example of that, and so are you, Malfoy. Besides, you’re not the _worst_ person she could end up with,” Longbottom replied.

“Enlighten me.”

“Well, there’s Cormac McLaggen.”

Draco fought the urge to gag and settled for wrinkling his nose. “Fine. Fair point.”

“On the topic of quidditch players, Hermione has a trend, doesn’t she? Ironic considering how little she actually likes the game. Viktor, Cormac, Ron, and now you.”

Draco huffed, but didn’t say anything to refute the point.

“And you read, don’t you Malfoy?”

“…It couldn’t possibly be considered a unique accomplishment to pick up a book on occasion and enjoy words printed on pages,” Draco countered dryly.

Longbottom laughed, the sound a deep rumbling timbre yet somehow still bright. “I’ve always been a bit surprised that Hermione’s romantic interests were never big fans of books. I think it’d be a nice change of pace for her to be with someone who can compete with her on an intellectual level.”

Draco sighed; he returned to his plant and gave it a second chance. He scooped off all the excess dirt until the green leaves of Dittany poked themselves into view. With gentle fingers, he brushed off the flecks of soil until his sapling was spotless.

Never in his life could he imagine that the day would come when he would talk to Neville Longbottom about his so-called romantic connection with Hermione and actually take the conversation seriously.

Draco slumped into his stool and massaged his temples. “So, Hermione may be attracted to a certain athletic physique and likes someone who reads. Not exactly very specific features— there are plenty of other blokes who are physically fit and can read a bloody book. You really think that just because I match these 2 non-specific qualities, we could overcome years of bullying, prejudice, and oh I don’t know, I was sort of a pawn under Voldemort, you know, that evil wizard who wanted to kill her entire muggleborn kind?”

A long pause followed, long enough for Draco to become irately impatient and restlessly drum his fingers. The Gryffindor boy’s mouth was slightly ajar, eyes blown wide as he regarded Draco with what appeared oddly like pride.

“What?” Draco finally snapped.

“You called her Hermione,” Longbottom observed.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he grumbled out uncomfortably, “you call her Hermione too.”

“Yes, but it’s different when her name is coming out of _your_ mouth. There’s distance established with surnames. I bet you’re calling me Longbottom in your head right now.”

“The two of us have a history almost as rotten as mine and Hermione’s. Plainly speaking, we’re not friends. Aren’t I still Malfoy to you as well?” Draco shot back.

“Yes,” he agreed and nodded, “but I wouldn’t be opposed to striking up a tentative sort of truce-friendship.” He offered Draco a forgiving smile that emphasized the wrinkles of his laugh lines.

Draco bit the inside of his cheek, not expecting such a bold extension of the olive branch. Bloody Gryffindors.

“Malfoy, yeah you were a right arsehole and don’t have the cleanest past. But you fought against an underclassman in your own House over a word you used to spit out every day at muggleborns. I would have had trouble believing it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. If we had come a few minutes later, or if Berrow had cornered you in the halls, it would have become a one-sided beatdown and you know it. _You_ are the one who changed Hermione’s mind about you. As far as I can tell, none of Hermione’s other suitors have yet to literally start a fight for her.”

Any retorts that Malfoy had died on his lips; he shifted his weight awkwardly. Being told that he did something…good, was something that he might have basked in in his past, but now he couldn’t help but feel undeserving. It wasn’t like he was intentionally trying to get his arse whooped on her behalf.

Longbottom smiled amicably, as if he could read Draco’s discomfort. “It’s not exactly the Slytherin way to go with broad proclamations, so why don’t you start with something small and subtle? Like give her a gift? It doesn’t have to be much for Hermione to be happy. She’ll appreciate the gesture.”

Draco ran his hand down his temple, over his cheekbones, and stopped at his chin. “Longbottom, why are you speaking as if I wish to pursue her?”

“Well, don’t you? You’ve never straightforwardly denied anything on your end. It’s all been about why it wouldn’t work for her.” Longbottom’s smile grew more pleased as redness creeped up Draco’s neck like an irritated rash.

Draco said nothing, and Longbottom took the silence as an invitation to continue. 

“Why not start with this Dittany? You should have some mature plants from last week with ripe leaves,” the brunette wizard gestured towards the little plant that swayed from side to side. “Dittany has strong healing properties, and rumor has it that you’re quite talented with potions. Maybe you could concoct something that could help with healing a certain cursed scar she has…” Longbottom trailed off, but stared pointedly at the mark peeking out from Draco’s wrist.

Instinctively, Draco yanked his sleeve down and concealed his Dark Mark.

“You know what Longbottom? I think I preferred it when we didn’t speak to each other,” Draco groused, though his grievance held no real malice. 

Ignoring Draco’s retort, Longbottom mused, “She’s been looking better lately. Hermione is more affected by the war then she lets on. She doesn’t sleep much anymore. Barely eats either, just nibbles on her food like a rabbit and then sets it back down. But these last few days…have been better. She looks happier, I suppose.”

“And?” Draco replied coolly, trying to keep his tone level instead of hanging on every word Longbottom said like a desperate teenager.

“Well, how can I not ‘boat’ it if you’re able to make Hermione at least a little bit happier?”

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

The reading lamp shone a shaft of light over page 326 of _Advanced Rune Translation_ , where he idly fiddled with the corner of the page. It was the third time he had read the page and yet, not a single word had been absorbed into his addled brain. His reading glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose, and he let them rest there for a moment before he pushed them back up.

If he couldn’t stop thinking about her before, it was a lost cause now. He lolled his head backwards and let it thud against the headboard. Staring blankly at the canopy of his four-poster bed, Draco allowed his mind to wander.

Everyone seemed to be hellbent on the idea that he liked Hermione. Yes, they’ve crossed more bridges in their relationship in these last 2 months than the entire 7 years that he had known her, but he had still been a prat to her for most of it. Longbottom had claimed that Draco himself had changed Hermione’s mind about him.

But that wasn’t quite right. He hadn’t done anything special. _Hermione_ was the one who had changed him without even knowing it.

Hermione, with her courage, brilliance, and kindness was in stark opposition to the images of dirty, dumb, and uncouth simpletons that he had been groomed to believe represented muggleborns. But only a fool would deny that this muggleborn didn’t outwit every other student in this school. She had proved every pureblood notion he had structured his identity around wrong, and shattered the veneer of Malfoy superiority he had been comfortably squatting under. (Why would a boy question his father? The hero he idolized that knew all the right answers and knew all the right ways to get the results he wanted. Fathers were supposed to be trusted. Fathers were supposed to protect their families. Fathers were supposed to love their sons…weren’t they?)

No, Draco hadn’t done anything special. He had simply belatedly realized something that everyone else already knew. Something he should have accepted a long time ago. It didn’t matter what the fuck her blood was composed of— Hermione Granger was better than him in every possible way.

She was beautiful and brilliant and bold and had invested her time in him when he didn’t deserve a bloody second of it.

He didn’t deserve it when she healed his battered body and broken nose and carted him to the Hospital Wing.

Nor her well-intentioned concern for him when she kept tabs on the Malfoy family in the papers.

Especially not when she missed her own birthday party to sit with him in the darkness.

And most of all, he certainly didn’t deserve her forgiveness, as the reality was, he hadn’t done a thing for her the night of her torture. He had done what he apparently did best— hovered like a coward on the sidelines.

Oh, how one-sided this had all been. In comparison, he had done so little for her. A fistfight with a sixth year and a night listening to her talk about books with a cup of tea. Draco pinched his nose as he exhaled through his mouth.

Fine. All of you win. Nott, Zabini, Longbottom, and…he swiped his thumb back-and-forth over his chest where his heart lay, maybe a small part of him buried deep, deep down wanted this too. That’s what all of this was about, wasn’t it? Every nightmare was telling him to do _something_. Even if he didn’t know the right answers or make the right choices, he was supposed to take some sort of action.

Maybe it didn’t have to be too late. 

Placing his hand on the cover of _Advanced Rune Translation_ , he closed the book with a resolute thump. Opening his drawer, he inserted the runes book back into its dedicated nook, and instead pulled out his copy of _Advanced Potion-Making._

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: I love writing the side characters haha, Draco and Neville interactions are the underrated interactions I never knew i needed~ I imagine Neville to be an interesting mix of disalarmingly kind and forgiving while no longer intimidated by Draco anymore.
> 
> Hope everyone had a lovely week and please leave feedback if you can :)


	10. Convenient endings

After a long week of quite literally holing himself up in his dormitory and poring over every potions book at his disposal, Draco had managed to theorize a possibility. It was a theory that was hopelessly simple, but at this point, he was willing to take even the cloud with the thinnest of silver linings.

What could break one of the strongest curses imbued with dark magic? As obviously unimaginative as it sounded, perhaps the answer was well, an even stronger form of light magic.

Phoenix tears.

As part of his Malfoy birthright, every heir was given a tiny vial containing no more than a few drops of the mythical bird’s healing tears. For emergencies only, in case there was a true threat to the end of the Malfoy line. 

But it seemed only fitting for a curse that was caused by his family to also be cured by his family— this logical justification was emergency enough, wasn’t it?

Satisfied with that rationale, this morning, he had penned a letter to his mother requesting for his vial as a precaution to keep on hand. (With reassurances that he was fine and certainly not getting into fights and the most violence he’s been involved with this year was when he tripped down a flight of stairs—she could ask Madame Pomfrey, honest.) So, after he securely tied the scroll to Altair, the Malfoy family’s owl, and watched him flap his regal jet-black wings, Draco’s task was done and he should very much get on with his day.

He could go back to his room, brush the fort of potion books and notes aside and try to get a wink of sleep. He could head towards the Great Hall and eat breakfast like a normal human being. Or, he could even traverse to the library and actually do some of the homework assignments that he’d been neglecting.

However, Draco ignored the stairs heading towards the dungeons, breezed right past the doors to the Great Hall, and didn’t bat an eyelash as he passed the library. Instead he paced the halls near the entrance to the Gryffindor tower, feeling very much like a snake cast into the sky. 

Longbottom probably hadn’t been serious when he had thrown out the Hogsmeade suggestion. In his self-imposed research exile, Draco had only briefly caught glances of Hermione during their shared classes, but he knew that her popularity was still at its all-time high.

There was no way that Hermione was going to Hogsmeade alone— she had so many friends, so many groups vying for her attention. And at the very least, Potter and Weasley would find a way to carve out time in their oh-so-fancy Auror careers and visit the missing piece to the Golden trio. The very idea of her choosing his company over everyone else’s was already unfathomable when Longbottom had suggested it, and just as unfathomable one day before the Hogsmeade weekend.

It wasn’t his business whether Hermione had anyone to go with to Hogsmeade, and Merlin, he wasn’t a pathetic third-year bouncing on his toes trying to get out of the castle on a first-date. Ridiculous. There was sleeping and eating and homework to be done, and he already expended far too much time loitering by the Gryffindor towers.

Draco swiveled on his heel, but didn’t even make it past 3 steps before the Gryffindor door burst open and a boisterous voice echoed down the stairwell.

“Hermione you’re not officially with Weasley anymore, yeah? So, what’s the harm in us going together to Hogsmeade tomorrow? We went to the Christmas party together and that was great, wasn’t it?”

Ugh, he recognized that nasally voice anywhere. McLaggen. Merely hearing him incited Draco’s most repulsed sneer. 

“Cormac…frankly speaking, we’re not very compatible with each other. We don’t have very much to converse about, and I don’t even know why you want to go out with me,” Hermione answered thinly.

“Well, you’re bloody gorgeous for one. You’ve really become much prettier since your first year. Your hair is still kinda big and frizzy but you’ve gotten better at taming it, I can deal with it,” McLaggen said as if he was the gracious one doing her a favor, “and two, you’re super popular now after you helped Potter take down Voldemort. What man wouldn’t want to date you?”

“So, you are interested in me for my more recently acceptable physical features and celebrity status?” Hermione observed calmly, though Draco could hear her ire steadily grow with each word. Draco imagined that if he could see her now, her eyes would be flashing dangerously and the tips of her hair would be curling with wild magic. 

McLaggen hesitated, perhaps making a smart decision for once and not opening his mouth.

“I guess so?”

Or not.

A beat of silence, and then Hermione spoke with lethal precision, “I think it’d be best if you left me alone.”

“But Hermione what about—”

“I’m going with someone else to Hogsmeade. Sorry,” she stated without sounding the least bit apologetic.

Draco’s heart stuttered; an inky pool of resignation trickled from the top of his head and sloshed to the pit of his stomach. Draco was right and Longbottom was a fool— Hermione was going with someone else and Draco had let the opportunity die before it could be born.

“You should have just started with that!” McLaggen bellowed out. “Hey, don’t forget that you’re the one who asked me to Slughorn’s Christmas party, _you’re_ the one who started it all. Way to lead a guy on.”

“Our ‘romance’ ended at the Christmas party and we have never had anything past that night!” Hermione finally snapped, her controlled demeanor doused with gasoline and lit aflame. “To put it bluntly, I can’t stand you! You’re shallow, inconsiderate, and self-centered. All you do is talk about yourself and brag about quidditch— I honestly couldn’t care less about how many goals you’ve saved because guess what? It bloody doesn’t matter!” 

“Whatever Hermione, just keep on acting like you’re too good for everybody else. You may think you have everything now that you’re famous, but you’re only lucky that you met Potter. If you hadn’t, you know that you would still be alone with no friends. No one likes a swot who thinks they know everything,” McLaggen snarled back.

Heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs, and Draco stepped out of the way before McLaggen could barrel into him.

As the Gryffindor keeper noticed Draco’s presence, his scowl curved into an ugly sneer. “Malfoy, why the hell aren’t you locked away in Azkaban with a dementor sucking your face?”

Draco clenched his jaw and widened his own sneer. “McLaggen, why the hell are you so far away from home? The zoo is looking for its runaway baboon.” 

“Fuck off, Malfoy. You’re lucky I’m not in the mood right now, or else I’d be wiping the library floor with your bloody face again,” McLaggen spat, then made an obscene gesture with his hand and stomped away.

Draco seethed, the memory was foggy, but it dawned on him that he recognized McLaggen’s brawny silhouette from the group of students who had beat him during the first week of school. Every cell in his body screamed at him to go after the brainless oaf and hex him to oblivion. But Hermione’s warning of Azkaban rang clear, and he didn’t want her even more upset.

Hermione. Gods, he was not the right person to do this, but he couldn’t possibly leave now that McLaggen had so kindly and loudly called him out. Where were Potter, Weasley, and the female Weasley when you actually needed them?

Sighing, Draco begrudgingly trudged up the stairs— deliberately making his footfalls audible so she could leave if she wished— and stopped a few feet below her. Leaning against the wall and crossing his arms, Draco opened his mouth to say a tentative greeting.

But as always, she was one step ahead of him and huffed out, “Hi Draco, long time no see. And, of course, when you do show up, it’s at the worst moment possible.”

“I don’t have to report my whereabouts to you,” Draco answered instinctively, but immediately felt the guilt creeping in. The best way to speak to an upset female probably wasn’t to start on the defensive.

Hermione rolled her eyes, but didn’t retort. “I know you don’t have to. I didn’t mean it like that. After seeing you relatively often and then not at all, I guess I just…” she trailed off, then took a calming breath, “look Draco, if you’re trying to start a row can it wait until later? Just…just leave. Please.”

Draco didn’t move a muscle; he simply stood there and drank in her ruddy nose and glassy eyes and listened to her sniffles. Although not full-on bawling, Hermione’s face was splotchy red and shiny streaks of mucus ran down her nostrils. A few tears dripped from the corner of her eyes, but she didn’t attempt to wipe them away.

The quiet fury snuck up on him—slowly, then all at once, like how sleep enveloped someone in a blink of an eye. Seeing Hermione like this ignited an emotion that had gone dormant under repetitive bouts of occlusion. But Draco had never really forgotten who he used to be, and the cold anger spilled from a crack in its locked drawer and flooded through his veins.

“ _Muffliato,”_ he casted without reaching for his wand, and followed up with a barrier spell to ward Gryffindors from exiting the towers or climbing up the staircase. Closing the distance between them, Draco walked up a few more stairs and sat down on the step below her.

He would have handed her his handkerchief, but she had never returned it from that night in the quidditch pitch, so he could only wait patiently for her to collect herself.

When her sniffles began to subside, Draco remarked, “You should have punched him.”

Hermione hiccupped and gave him a wry smile. “I really should have.”

“It was a missed opportunity.”

“I know, I imagine it would have been a cathartic experience,” Hermione agreed.

Draco turned his steely gaze onto her and said lowly, “Do you want me to punch him for you? Or worse, if you’d like.”

Hermione blinked. If it was anyone else, she likely would have laughed, but she quickly realized that he was deadly serious. Hermione shook her head sternly. “No, Draco, I don’t want you to get into any more fights. I really don’t want them to have any reason to put you into Azkaban.”

“I know,” Draco nodded, but he kept his eyes trained on Hermione, “I haven’t been provoking anyone. But once a snake gets stepped on enough times it can’t help but bite back. It doesn’t have to be physical. There are other methods that can be more subtle without getting implicated.”

Frowning, Hermione reached to grab his wrist. “Draco…”

“McLaggen was one of them, you know.”

“One of who?”

“The library. The day you found me beaten against the bookshelves.”

Hermione’s eyes flashed with anger and she reflexively tightened her grip on his arm. “I’ll report him to Headmistress McGonagall. She’ll punish Cormac accordingly. We can pressure him to reveal the rest of the assailants as well.”

Draco shook his head. “No point. It’s not like I just sat on my hands and took it, I retaliated of course. Telling McGonagall would only add another strike to my ledger. It would be my word against theirs. You can’t use your influence here, how could they believe your word when you weren’t even there?”

She bit her lip, her grip on his arm wound so tightly that his skin paled even more ghostly white. “What they did to you wasn’t right.”

“It’s the way of the world, Hermione.” He lifted his shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “What happened to me is fine Hermione, the bones have healed and the blood has dried.” Draco carefully extracted her hand off of his arm and shook off the numbing circulation loss.

With surprisingly gentle pressure, he tilted her chin up with the tips of his fingers. “But making you cry is McLaggen’s second transgression, and he’s treading on thin ice. There is a reason why I was able to rule this school prior to my sixth year. I may not have the Slytherins and Malfoy name on my side anymore, but I have plenty of other tricks up my own sleeves.”

Hermione pulled out of his touch and crossed her arms over her stomach. “No, I don’t want you to do anything… _unfortunate_ against McLaggen.”

“Why not? If I was in your position with your status and power, I wouldn’t spend a heartbeat hesitating. McLaggen was a right arsehole to you, he gets what he deserves,” Draco growled.

“But _you_ are not at the top of the food chain anymore Draco, so don’t go trying to do reckless things that are more risk than benefit. Your father isn’t here to hear about anything going on in school anymore,” Hermione snapped.

Grey eyes widened, the sheen of coolness dissolving to sour disbelief. In his own twisted way, Draco had been trying to help, and it stung like a bitter poison that she could only see the evil in his intentions.

“Granger, you said you wanted to know more about me, didn’t you? Understand me? Well Granger, this is the reality. I’m not a nice person. And I’ve always been willing to do unpleasant things to secure the results I needed. Do you think that I’m some miserable project for you to fix up—‘Golden girl reforms Death Eater with her righteous morals and inspiring words,’ and you were going to change me into something society could accept back with open arms?” Draco dropped eye contact as he finished, hiding his grimace from her. To occupy his hands, he tapped at the outside of his thighs and realized that he was trembling from the waist down.

“Are you afraid of me, Granger?” he continued in a low voice, “I’m not a clear-cut good guy like Potter or Weasley. There are certain ways of thinking that have been ingrained into me, and I’m not going to change overnight or because you tell me to.”

Hermione placed her hand lightly over his knee, barely touching the fabric of his black trousers, and gently swiped her thumb back and forth.

“Draco, I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid _for_ you,” she said evenly, then lowered her head to meet his eyes. “I don’t want you to change because you think it would please me. You should change because _you_ want to do it for yourself. Come on Draco, you’re a self-preserving Slytherin, aren’t you? Think about it from that perspective, what are you going to gain if you _Imperio_ McLaggen to dance buck naked in the Great Hall to the Weird Sisters—”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you think I would do?”

“—sure you would gain some glorious pleasure from his humiliation, but then what? Straight to McGonagall’s office and another strike against your name and besmearing my vouch of good faith. The Ministry isn’t exactly on your side Draco, and if word gets out that you’re still dabbling in untoward behavior, it only gives them more cards in their hand,” Hermione continued.

Draco sighed, but didn’t say anything to counter her argument.

“Please Draco, don’t do anything rash. I know that you’re smart, and can be level-headed when you want to be.” She squeezed his kneecap and gave him a shy smile. “I also would like it if you could continue staying at Hogwarts too,” she admitted softly.

Bloody hell. He was going to let her have her way again, wasn’t he? Since when had she so effectively wrapped him around her little pinky finger?

But as he nodded reluctantly and her eyes lit up happily— no trace of tear tracks or splotchy red cheeks— Draco allowed the thought to surface that he didn’t really mind. 

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

Draco didn’t know whether to laugh or to chuck the offending piece of paper in the bin. As he contemplated his course of action, he took a generous bite out of his chocolate frog—head first, of course.

 _Ronald Weasley._ Of all the hundreds of chocolate frog cards, of course he would get one of the Golden trio and more specifically Hermione’s famous flame. It was a bad omen if he ever saw one. His thumb roved over the raised ridges of the golden _Ronald Weasley_ inscription, and he stared at the portrait of the red-headed wizard grinning lazily. Draco flipped the card between his fingers, but ultimately slid the card into the inside pocket of his black blazer. 

Popping the remainder of the chocolate frog into his mouth, he chewed thoughtfully as the rich cocoa sweetness melted on his tongue. Could it had only been a few years ago that he had loved Honeydukes and would have been stuffing his bag with chocolate frogs, sugar quills, and pumpkin pasties? It seemed like practically another life. Now at 17, teetering on the edge of adulthood, Draco was a fish out of water in this place teeming with enthusiastic third-years.

His childhood was gone, it had died in a flash without him even realizing it.

He exited Honeydukes without much fanfare, the tiny bell at the door tingling at his departure. In front of him, the rain pattered relentlessly and tiny pricks of water bounced off the cobblestone streets of Hogsmeade. With this deluge of pelting rain, would the owl he sent yesterday be able to swiftly reach Malfoy Manor? Draco pondered this for a few moments, resting his back against the aged, lime-green door and listening to the white noise of rain. But the indistinct cacophony of children laughing and conversing in shrill voices could be heard in the background, and soon they would try bursting through the doors.

Draco needed to move on.

Opening up his umbrella, Draco stepped out to the streets. Rain sloshed into his boots, drenching his socks in cold dampness, and mud splattered all over the shins of his dark blue trousers. He shouldn’t have come to Hogsmeade— it wasn’t his business who Hermione went on a date with.

Not that she was his _only_ reason for this excursion. No of course not, Draco really did need to pick up a new set of quills from Scrivenshaft’s, and as a bonus, he also discovered that he no longer experienced the innocent joy of his youth from Honeydukes’ treats.

As he trudged through the wet pavement in the general direction of the quill shop and past Madam Puddifoot’s tea shop, a flash of white caught his attention. He craned his neck slightly and felt his feet automatically slow to a stop. A few meters to his left stood a woman wearing a snow-white chiffon dress that halted a few centimeters above her knees, exposing lovely smooth legs that were further accentuated by golden strappy heels. She twirled a solid-colored maroon umbrella over her head, droplets of rain cascading around her. Contrary to the desolate downpour that they were currently both standing in, this woman dressed like she was ready to embark on a sunny summer picnic.

It had been a very long time since Draco had appreciated the opposite sex, and this woman, or at least her legs, was objectively beautiful. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel a tiny crumb of guilt— it had only been thoughts of Hermione for so long, and he had unconsciously grown fastidiously loyal to her.

But then, as if feeling the weight of his gaze on her backside, the woman turned around.

“Draco? What are you doing here?”

Never mind. He was in the clear. Draco didn’t know whether to laugh, or at this point, not even be surprised.

“Hi Hermione,” he greeted.

She tilted her head to the side, then moved closer towards him. 

Her sweet, honey-vanilla perfume assaulted his nose in the most pleasant way, and anymore words he may have had died in his brain as he drank in her appearance. The dress boasted a plunging neckline, and he forced himself to stop lingering on the milky skin of the tops of her breasts and dragged his gaze to her face.

The situation wasn’t much less distracting. Her hair was styled into an intricate updo, reminiscent of her hairstyle at the Yule ball in their fourth year, with her hair curling into a low ponytail against her bare collarbone. Black eyeliner swept across her eyelids and sharpened into an alluring cat-eye, and her cheeks were dusted with rouge. Bright red lipstick popped on her lips, and Draco lost himself to ogling the full pout of her lips probably longer than appropriate.

Hermione made a frustrated noise and blew out a puff of air. “I knew it. I look ridiculous, don’t I?”

“Ridiculous,” wasn’t exactly the word choice he would use…

“These sorts of outfits don’t exactly suit me…I don’t really have the body for it. Ginny and Padma definitely went overboard with the make-up too, but they were having so much fun dolling me up like a Barbie that I didn’t have the heart to stop them.” Hermione fidgeted with her dress, adjusting the thin strap that had slipped off her shoulder.

“What’s a Barbie?” He managed to say, inwardly groaning that that’s what he had fixated on.

However, Hermione seemed relieved to have a knowledge-based question to answer. “Oh, sorry, she’s this muggle toy doll that ingrain impossible standards of beauty into young children, but you can dress her up in different outfits and she does have a diverse array of careers.”

“Oh,” he replied. The conversation stalled, and Draco struggled to figure out where to put his eyes before finally landing in between her eyebrows. Draco gulped down the lump in his throat and he belatedly assured her, “No, you look…nice, Hermione. I’m sure your date will think so as well.”

Merlin, and he once thought that he was good with women?

Her eyebrows scrunched together. “Date? What date?” But then the smart witch followed his line of vision to the tea shop behind her, and she put two and two together. “Oh no, I’m not waiting to meet anyone there, I just happened to pass by on my way to Scrivenshaft’s. I told Cormac that I was going to Hogsmeade with someone just to get him off my back. What’s with men not taking no for an answer until another man is involved? To be honest, I’ve actually never been to Madam Puddifoot’s. So, I was looking through the window for curiosity’s sake,” Hermione explained.

A weight disappeared from his chest and his shoulders relaxed, he felt light, almost like he could sprout wings and soar like an Abraxane.

“Hard to believe that you never went with Weasley.”

Hermione pursed her lips. “No, he didn’t particularly want to step foot in that, and I quote, ‘frilly pink explosion ransacked by couples making-out.’ He has a point, I suppose,” she chuckled and looked down at her shoes, shifting her weight.

“Hm, shame.” Draco sidestepped Hermione and moved towards the shop’s display case of glistening porcelain tea cups. “Despite the gaudy appearance, they do offer a fair selection of tea and desserts.”

“Really?” Hermione’s voice was much closer than he expected, and he nearly startled when he turned to see her blinking curiously at him, her long lashes sweeping against her cheekbones.

Draco took half a step back and cleared his throat. “Ah, well, I’ve only been here once. But if memory serves right, the food and drink were highlights of the date.”

“With Pansy Parkinson, correct?” Hermione snipped. Draco blinked, was that bitterness he detected?

“Yes,” he replied.

“Hm,” was all she responded with. Her entire demeanor had chilled to frosty, and Draco vaguely remembered that Pansy and Hermione had a less than amicable relationship.

“I suppose the two of us may have shared...certain ideologies before. We were somewhat close at the time. But who knows? Perhaps her views have evolved from the war as well,” Draco tried to placate.

For some reason, Hermione grew more aggravated. “Pansy was even crueler to me than you used to be. I can’t believe you dated her.”

He shrugged. “I liked the attention, I suppose. And Pansy was only too eager to give me everything.”

“Ugh. Spare me the details,” she growled. Her irritation emanated off in waves, and in some odd way, he found it endearing.

“…Are you upset?” Draco asked, mildly bemused.

“ _No,_ ” Hermione sputtered, “so what if I’m the only girl at Hogwarts who never got invited to a date at Madam Puddifoot’s? So what if it was assumed that I was too swotty and bookish to appreciate frilly décor and overpriced dessert plates? Also, I’m a war heroine now! I’ve grown past the days of Hogsmeade dates and Madam Puddifoot’s pink pastries and floral tea.”

“You want to go in, don’t you?” Draco deduced.

“Honestly Draco, did you not listen to anything I just said? Besides, I can’t very well go in there _alone_ and be subjected to all those young couples in love.” 

“I’ll go in with you.”

The rest of Hermione’s logical rebuttals on why she most definitely didn’t need to go into Madam Puddifoot’s trailed off. She regarded him suspiciously. “…Draco Malfoy wants to go into Madam Puddifoot’s tea shop?”

“It’s that sort of depressing rainy day, I could use a cup of tea. Besides, I’ll have the Golden Girl owe me one for fulfilling one of her lifelong dreams. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you read all the summaries of the romance novels in the Room of Requirement’s rendition of the Malfoy safehouse,” he explained, and if Hermione squinted, she may have noted the teasing glint in his eye.

“H-Hey!” she stammered, blushing.

But when Draco pulled open the door to the tea shop, the tiny bell at the top tingling their arrival, Hermione begrudgingly followed him and stopped at the doorframe to insist, “Fine, but only because it is indeed a depressing rainy day and I could use a cup of tea as well.”

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

For someone who expressed such reticence about entering the shop in the first place, Hermione sure spent a lot of time poring over the menu.

Considering all that had changed over the last few years, it was somewhat reassuring to see that this tea shop was still overwhelmingly tacky. Pink ribbons and green streamers looped across the walls like some sort of off-brand Christmas palette and copper Cupid statues dangled over most of the round tables. Even the chairs were hot pink, and they squeaked with age whenever he so much as shifted his weight. At least the sweet smell of confectionery desserts and baked goods was more pleasant than this place’s wretched interior décor. 

“Hmm…maybe this one? Oh, this one looks good too, though it’s probably not worth the calories,” Hermione muttered to herself. 

Draco refrained from rolling his eyes, and instead addressed Madam Puddifoot, who had already come-and-go 3 times and now hovered at their table for the last few minutes.

“Since the lady can’t seem to settle on a decision, can we have one of everything?”

Hermione snapped her head up, her eyes bulging comically. “Draco that’s too excessive—”

“—a Green Apple tea for myself, and a Lavender Jasmine tea for Hermione over here. Oh, but do leave a menu behind in case she takes offense that I ordered for her and wants to pick something else to exercise her independence, or simply out of spite.”

Her eyes narrowed to slits, but she didn’t object.

“Wonderful,” Madam Puddifoot said as she scribbled down their order. “Color me surprised to see that the two of you paired up, but it’s good to know that the war did stimulate some nice romantic changes.”

“We’re not—”

“That’s not what’s—”

The squat tea shop owner gave them a wink that was far from furtive, and sauntered away before they could finish their protests.

Once Madam Puddifoot was out of earshot, Hermione rounded on him. “Draco! We didn’t need to order every dessert on the menu. The two of us couldn’t possibly finish all of them.”

Draco waved her off. “I’ll pay, don’t worry about it. Take them home with you or throw them out if you don’t like them.”

Hermione rubbed at her temples. “I suppose it’s too late this time…but next time you don’t have to spoil me like this, I can very well support myself.”

 _Next time._ He folded the words in his head carefully.

“I know you can, but that’s not the point of dates, now is it?” he paused, realizing what he had outright stated. “Not that this is one, of course,” he quickly amended.

A beat later, Hermione agreed, “Right.”

Fortunately, Madam Puddifoot returned with 2 levitating white porcelain tea pots. She hovered the tea pots over their respective cups, and hot tea elegantly streamed from the spouts. The comforting aroma of apple wafted from his cup, and Draco took a small sip of his drink as Hermione did the same.

He watched as Hermione closed her eyes and inhaled the floral scent of her drink. “It’s delicious. Good choice Draco. How’s yours?” she asked politely.

Draco nodded. “It’s fine, although a touch scalding to fully enjoy at the moment.”

She nodded in return, and from then on, the pair lapsed into silence. But it wasn’t a peaceful silence, no, on the contrary, the air between them was charged with incredible awkwardness. Now that he thought about it, Hermione and himself only conversed when they were having a row or in the afterglow of a traumatic event. What did they talk about in normal circumstances?

_Come on Draco, don’t overthink this. Just relax and the charm will surface naturally._

“Was what McLaggen said true?” Draco winced as soon as he finished speaking. Where did he get off thinking that McLaggen would be a great topic of conversation?

As if she had walked past a rubbish bin, Hermione’s face pinched. “Are you referring to when he called me a swot with no friends, or when he gave me that back-handed compliment about my hair?”

“What? No, neither of those,” Draco insisted.

“Then what?” she pressed.

“That _you_ were the one who asked him to go to the old Slug’s party together. I can’t fathom any set of circumstances that would cause you to pursue that tosser.”

“Oh,” she said. She didn’t elaborate right away and instead fiddled with her earring, which he now noticed were sparkling emerald studs. With a sigh, she reluctantly admitted, “Yes, I did.” 

Draco nearly dropped his tea cup. He wrinkled his nose in distaste. “What, you lose a bet?”

“No…you’re going to think it’s stupid. It _is_ stupid,” Hermione hedged. Draco said nothing and waited patiently. When she looked up to see Draco intently watching her, she relented and elaborated, “I only asked Cormac to come with me to Professor Slughorn’s party to get back at Ron, who absolutely despised him. I had initially asked Ron to accompany me…but then things happened and he snubbed me for Lavender Brown.”

Hermione exhaled through her nose, her forehead creasing as she recounted the memory of her past relationship. “With Ron and I…it was always about jealousy and making each other jealous. It started with Viktor in fourth year, then Lavender and Cormac in sixth year, and even on-and-off jealousy with _Harry_ during our later years.”

“Potter? Doesn’t he fancy Weasley’s sister?”

“Exactly!” Hermione enthused.

“…Are you and Weasley still together?” Draco couldn’t help but inquire about the nebulous uncertainty lingering in his mind.

“No, not anymore,” Hermione confessed, and swept her hair over her shoulder and played with the loose curls. “We gave it an honest try after the war. We both really wanted it to work. Not just us, _everyone_ wanted it to work. It would have been a really convenient ending— Harry and Ginny. Ron and myself. Our children growing up to be around the same age and going to Hogswarts together as the next generation of the Golden Trio. Admittedly, it was a lovely future that I could imagine myself being happy living in.”

She looked down into her tea, finding much interest in the beige liquid rippling languidly in its cup.

“It would have been lovely,” Hermione repeated, almost fondly, like she was looking at a faded photograph. “But I know my story isn’t going to be with Ron. He’s a very good man and still one of my closest friends, but the romantic part of our relationship was founded on jealousy. Once that stimulus was taken away and there was no more Viktor, Lavender, or Cormac, we ended up not having very much to drive our relationship forward. We didn’t have much in common as just the 2 of us— Ron and Hermione. For example, Ron was never particularly passionate for reading, and I never developed a love for quidditch. We rowed all the time and the fights kept escalating in pettiness. We got angry at each other over the smallest of things— he’d be upset that I would read at quidditch games, or I’d be upset that he would make snide remarks about my popularity because he couldn’t handle being overshadowed by Harry or myself. We both knew our break up was inevitable, and it ended up mutual and amicable…but it was still quite sad to see the lovely future we had built in our heads shatter like nothing.”

Her eyes were glazed with a sheen of wetness and she surreptitiously wiped at them with the back of her thumb.

Draco set down his tea cup and leaned back until he hit the chair’s frame. “Sure, it may have been a convenient ending. It may have been a lovely future. But it ended because you realized that wasn’t what you wanted.”

“What do you mean?”

He drummed his fingers against the tacky, mustard-yellow, floral tablecloth. “I thought I wanted a convenient ending. I thought I wanted to grow up to be just like my father— powerful, rich, strong. I thought I wanted to marry a high-society pureblood wife and raise my family the same way I was raised. But then the war happened, and I realized that I only strived towards this future because it was conveniently laid out for me, not because it’s what I actually wanted.”

“Then what do you want, Draco?” Propping her elbows up on the table, Hermione leaned forward with her chin in her hands.

They locked eyes for a moment, then Draco dropped contact to idly stir his tea with a small golden spoon. “I don’t know, Hermione. But my point was, convenient doesn’t always mean happy.”

Hermione said nothing and watched him carefully— it was rather unnerving having every facial tic scrutinized by her sharp eyes—but then suddenly she straightened, her back stiffening like a rod. A loud groan expelled from her painted red lips, and she slapped her palm against her forehead.

“Hermione? What’s wrong?” Draco asked, alarm tingling at the base of his neck.

Raucous pounding reverberated from behind him, and he knew that he was about to have his answer.

Twisting his body towards the window, Draco was met with the sight of one livid Ron Weasley and one disgruntled Harry Potter. The two Aurors were drenched in rain, and their damp hair matted to their foreheads like shaggy dogs. Both of them had their noses pressed against the glass, and it would have almost been comical if not for their glares attempting to murder him. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: This chapter took soo many re-writes, and deleted scenes. And I hope you're all as excited as I am to have Harry and Ron finally make their debut! 
> 
> I feel pretty neutral towards Romiome (is that even the right ship name?), it's obviously what happened, and I think they're okay together. But that's just it--it's a love that's okay. A simple sort of first love. I think Dramione would have been something...more, the kind of love that pulls at your heartstrings and compels you to root for them because of the forgiveness and growth and hurdles to make it work. 
> 
> I hope you're enjoying this story, please let me know your thoughts!


	11. Three is a trio, four is a crowd

* * *

There was something floating in his cup. It appeared to be a clumped-up ball of…hair? It was hard to tell— the liquid was so murky that it was impossible to see anything below the oily film layered on the surface. The smell was also absolutely repugnant, he didn’t know that anything could smell so atrocious that in comparison, his cheese-based potion was like a bouquet of fresh roses.

The 4 of them in the order of Draco, Hermione, Potter, and Weasley—Draco and Weasley at the ends with Hermione and Potter sandwiched in the middle—were currently crowded into a booth in a dusty corner of the Hogshead. As soon as they walked into the dingy excuse for an eating establishment, Draco had ordered 4 glasses of whatever was the most popular beverage for the table. Not for the purpose of drinking mind you, but to have something for his hands to tinker with as they embarked on quite possibly one of the most awkward group hangouts of his life.

Unfortunately, the arrival of 4 glasses sliding across the slimy table did nothing to abate the thick tension hanging in the air. Awkward silence blanketed them like a snowstorm with no discernible exit.

Reluctantly, after several long beats of dead air, Draco grumbled out, “Potter…Weasley…how goes the Auror life?”

Three pairs of eyes snapped to him, surprised that he of all people had made the first move with a polite-small-talk question of all things.

Potter recovered first, coughing into his fist as he cleared his throat. “It’s erm…going well. Busy, but that’s to be expected I suppose.”

Weasley, however, glowered at Draco with piercing ocean-blue eyes, and then whipped his head towards Hermione.

“Alright Hermione, let’s just cut to the chase. Why in the bloody hell are you dating Ferret-face over here? Have you gone mental? Is this why you didn’t answer our owl?” Weasley accused.

As he had likely perfected the charm from a very long summer dealing with Weasley and Hermione, Potter cast a _Muffliato_ around the table with almost no movement of his wand.

Draco felt the cushion shift as Hermione bristled beside him. She matched Weasley’s glare head-on and exclaimed, “Don’t turn this on me! You just told me that you owled me this _morning_ saying that you two ended up having availability to meet up—I was already here! How was I supposed to receive your letter? And we’re not dating, we just happened to be in Hogsmeade at the same time and stopped for tea together. As I mentioned in my letters, we share cordial interactions now, and it’s not strange for two cordial…potion partners to share a cup of tea together.”

Weasley rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on Hermione, like you would put on a skimpy dress that revealed more than your collarbone or anything on your face that wasn’t moisturizer for any other reason. And hey, how come you’re wearing this to impress Malfoy, but for our dates you never dressed like a…”

At Hermione’s fiery gaze, Weasley wisely chose not to finish his sentence.

Gripping the table with both her hands, Hermione leaned forward menacingly.

“Dressed like a _what_ Ronald? Care to finish that sentence? For your information, I borrowed this dress from your _sister_ , and she’s also the one who helped me with my make-up. I dressed this way not to impress anyone, but to have a different change of pace for _myself_. Ginny sends her regards to you by the way, Harry. Do you want me to give a comment back to her about this dress as well?” Hermione bit out.

“Whoa whoa whoa, I’m not a part of this!” Potter cried, but Hermione only leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms firmly across her chest.

Panic darted across Weasley’s face, and he turned towards Potter who only groaned into his hands and shook his head. As the two Aurors carried on with their telepathic exchange, Draco observed Hermione fuming in her seat, a bright red blush flaming across her cheeks.

Did Potter and Weasley really have experience with women? It was obvious that Hermione felt out of her comfort zone and probably just needed a compliment to bolster her confidence. Although it was hard to believe that she could even be insecure about such a thing, considering how effortlessly gorgeous she was. 

Draco sighed and cleared up for her, “Hermione, the dress and make-up are both lovely and the Weaselette has good taste. You look beautiful, okay? End of debate.”

Hermione smiled shyly, Potter nodded his head fervently, but Weasley turned to Draco with a suspicious glare.

“Okay Malfoy, just what is your angle? You’ve terrorized the 3 of us for years, nearly poisoned me in our sixth year, and locked me and Harry in the dungeons of your Manor, where Hermione was tortured just above us by _your_ family. Now we’re supposed to have a friendly chat around the table—which mind you, we’re only here because you’re banned from the Three Broomsticks after what you did to Madam Rosmerta— and you’re calling my ex-girlfriend beautiful like you’re the good guy?” Weasley spat.

Draco loosened at the collar of his white turtleneck, which suddenly felt much too constricting even in the cold and clammy temperature of the Hogshead.

Guilt pulsed uncomfortably through Draco’s chest, and he raised his hands in surrender. “I know. I’m not proud of what I’ve done in the past. But I have no angle. I don’t want anything from you two, or Hermione for that matter. Just trying to move on, same as all of you.”

Weasley twisted the corner of his mouth and Potter frowned; they exchanged a significant look.

“Prove it,” they chimed simultaneously.

“Oh, come on you two, just leave Draco alone. Please. He’s alright, trust me on this,” Hermione beseeched.

Potter raised an eyebrow. “It’s ‘Draco’ now is it?”

Weasley grunted and leaned forward on his hands. “Hermione, I know you mean well. But you can be too forgiving for your own good. Don’t forget that Malfoy here not only bullied us for years, but also oh, I don’t know, ended up being a bloody Death Eater working under the palm of You-Know-Who?”

Hermione slapped her hands against the table, rattling all of their untouched glasses and sloshing some of the dubious liquid out of the rims.

“ _I know,_ okay? You think I don’t know all about his history? I went through all the same doubts myself. But believe me when I say Draco Malfoy is not an evil person.” She breathed a heavy sigh and released the tension in her arms, allowing them to fall slack against her sides. “I trust Draco, okay?”

Draco’s mouth went dry, and he could only gape at her in awe. Never in his life did he think that the day would come when Hermione defended him against _her_ own friends.

Potter took off his glasses and wiped them on his sleeve. With his eyes closed, he explained calmly, “Hermione…I don’t exactly want to drudge up the past. But don’t you remember sixth year? You kept trying to convince me that I was paranoid and Malfoy wasn’t a Death Eater and we should stop tailing him— but then what do you know? It turned out he _was_ a Death Eater and ended up leading murderers into our school.”

Hermione opened her mouth to protest but Potter put out a hand and continued, “Yes, I know, he didn’t _really_ want to do it and he likely was threatened by Voldemort, but if we had stopped him at that time, maybe the whole bloody war didn’t even need to happen.”

She pursed her lips, jutting her hip out to one side. “Oh, come on Harry, we can’t dump the entire war on Draco’s shoulders.”

“Hermione, okay maybe we didn’t start off this conversation the right way, but we’re honestly just worried about you,” Weasley cut in, trying another approach and softening his voice, “you’ve always had a thing for pitiful creatures in need,” Draco scoffed at that and shot Weasley a scathing look, which the red-head pointedly ignored, “and you can’t deny that Malfoy has a suspicious reputation. We don’t want you getting wrapped up in anything dangerous.”

The fire still burned in Hermione’s eyes, but Draco was getting tired of being tossed back and forth as if he was an inanimate object. He placed a hand on her wrist and gently pushed Hermione back into her seat.

“Hermione, there’s no need to keep on defending me. Your friends are going to be suspicious of me no matter what you say. I’ll hear them out,” Draco looked at Potter, then directed his gaze to Weasley. “What do you two want from me,” he stated flatly. 

Weasley’s jaw dropped at Draco’s acquiescence, but Potter merely nodded and fished a small vial from his pocket. From this distance, Draco couldn’t tell what it was, but apparently Hermione did, and she immediately hopped back onto her feet.

“Ohhhh no Harry Potter! I gave that to you two to help with interrogating evil dark wizards!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, and I’m doing exactly that,” Potter sassed back, and gestured towards Draco. “Besides, we only need 3 drops, there will still be enough for the other Death Eaters.”

Ah, so that’s where Hermione’s Veritaserum had run off to. 

Draco clicked his tongue. “Clever move Hermione, didn’t take you as someone who would pull the wool over the ol’ Slug’s eyes.”

Her cheeks pinked, and she defended herself, “Well Veritaserum is an incredibly rare potion, and I thought it would be more useful for tracking down dark wizards instead of questioning my potions partner. Which by the way, _I still believe —_ we are not forcing Draco to drink Veritaserum.”

“Hermione,” Weasley tried to reason, “if he really has nothing to hide, then this should be a walk in the park. This is just a necessary precaution.”

“And I’m telling you that it’s _not_ necessary. The two of you don’t understand what Draco has been through.”

“And you do?” Potter countered.

“Well…yes…” she floundered.

Draco heaved a sigh, propped his elbows on the table, and laced his fingers into a bridge to rest his chin on. He regarded Potter’s sharp green eyes with his own neutral greys. At this rate, they would be here in this dilapidated dump all night.

“I’ll do it. Give the vial over here, Potter,” Draco said evenly. 

“What?!” Hermione squawked.

Draco turned towards his cordial potion’s partner with a tired look. “Hermione, your friends trust you. The problem is they don’t trust _me_ , and quite frankly, they don’t have any reason to. You said it yourself, we’re cordial potion’s partners. That’s hardly a relationship that overrules years of bullying and a war.” With that settled, Draco curled his fingers towards Potter and motioned for the Veritaserum. “Give it here Potter. Like hell I’m going to mix the potion with this poisonous hogwash the Hogshead is trying to pass off as a beverage, I’ll take the 3 drops directly.” 

Potter extended his arm, but before he could reach halfway across the table, Hermione snatched it from his hand.

Potter moaned. “Hermione—”

“No no, all of you shut up. Don’t interrupt me,” Hermione clipped, directly a smoldering glare at Weasley, Potter, and lastly, Draco himself. Magic curled at the tips of her elegantly styled hair, and her nostrils flared so hard that Draco wouldn’t have been surprised if she breathed fire next. 

“I’m the most brilliant witch of her age, and I trust Draco Malfoy. This trust wasn’t something that was simply pulled out of thin air, alright? I watched Draco have night terrors every morning and go running in ridiculous business-casual attire as part of some sort of occlumency ritual. I witnessed Draco assault a sixth year for calling me a ‘mudblood’ and he was going to get beaten to pumpkin juice in a 3-to-1 fight if Neville and I hadn’t intervened. I ditched my own birthday party to go _flying_ with him on a bloody broomstick, and we actually had a really lovely evening. I entered Draco’s dreams and memories— and I was so overwhelmed by his regret and sorrow and self-loathing that I couldn’t even focus on _myself_ getting tortured. And lastly, I appreciate that Draco can see me as who I am as _Hermione_ , and not the war heroine who people need to rub shoulders with to gain popularity points or the swotty Golden Girl who can’t wear nice dresses without getting interrogated about it.”

Hermione grabbed Potter’s hand and shoved the Veritaserum into his open palm and closed his fingers around the vial, but not without giving him a warning look that could melt glaciers. Potter, the Boy Who Lived and subsequently knew how to avoid death, sagely nodded and pocketed the Veritaserum back into his blazer.

Gobsmacked, the boys could do nothing but stare at her with their mouths hanging wide open. Draco’s cheeks burned like he had been placed under direct sunlight for far too long. Did Hermione really believe all that? His mind couldn’t fathom that Hermione Granger could ever speak about him so highly. 

“…Did you really go flying with Malfoy?” Weasley broke the silence by focusing on the most ridiculous detail. “Blimey, Hermione, we’ve been trying to get you on a broom for years, and it’s been like pulling gnomes out of my garden.”

As if thinking the same thought as Draco, Hermione rolled her eyes, but she offered Weasley a small smile. “Yes, and it was lovely. I felt like a Disney princess with the full moon and fireworks and whatnot.”

She tried to keep her voice level, but Draco could hear the hoarseness and slightest of tremors in her tone. As she reached out to grab her glass and occupy her hands, she pulled it a little too quickly towards her body and the mysterious substance splashed all over her white dress.

The liquid soaked through her dress like oil to rice paper, and before the outline of her nude bra could be completely exposed through the sheer material, Draco had already shrugged out of his blazer and threw it over her shoulders. Before any of them could even blink, he muttered a quick _Tergeo,_ followed by a hot-air charm.

“O-Oh, thank you Draco,” she stammered out, and pulled his jacket more snugly across her chest.

Potter and Weasley shared yet another look, but this time, when they snapped their attention back to Draco, instead of trying to scrutinize him for suspicious intentions, they appeared…confused. 

“Ouch,” Hermione mumbled.

Both the Aurors immediately shifted their attention back to Hermione. “What’s the matter Hermione? Does Malfoy have a weapon hidden in there?” Potter asked.

She shot them both an exasperated look that practically screamed _‘did either of you listen to my speech just now?’_ and then fumbled around in the inside pocket of Draco’s blazer. “No, it’s not a weapon, it’s a…” she cocked her head to the side, “a chocolate frog card? Of…Ron?”

“Oh no way! Let me see that!” Weasley exclaimed, snagging the card from Hermione’s fingers before she could flip to the description.

“Wow! It really is! Blimey I can’t believe I finally got my own chocolate frog card.” The ginger wizard grinned from ear to ear. “This no doubt, will go down as one of the best achievements of my life. Although…hmmm, they didn’t choose my good side. Pictures taken from the right always make my nose look too big.”

Potter plucked the card from Weasley’s grasp and observed it as well. “It _is_ your chocolate frog card Ron. But the real question is…why do you have this Malfoy? I would have thought that you would have chucked it in the bin as soon as you realized it was one of us.”

Draco bit his cheek, uncertain if he really wanted to admit anything. But then Hermione placed her hand onto his knee and gave him a reassuring squeeze, and he knew he was cornered. At this point, Draco vaguely wondered what she couldn’t convince him to do.

“Believe me Potter, I considered it. But I collect chocolate frog cards, and I have all of them except the new additions from the last month. You and Hermione are the only ones missing from my collection. I figured that it’s… silly to let past grudges prevent me from completing my collection.”

He felt another squeeze on his knee, and he glanced to his right to see Hermione smiling proudly at him, her free hand rolling in circles to motion him to continue. Draco clenched his jaw, then tried to relax it into a semblance of a cordial expression.

“Potter…well, Harry. I’m sorry that I bullied you throughout school. I’m sorry for everything, really. And Weasl—…Ron. I’m sorry for everything as well. And even more sorry about what happened to your brother, the twin. As far as Gryffindors went, he was…cool. He got up to some amusing tricks, and I’d almost say that I liked him. It wasn’t fair for his life to be cut short.”

Something shifted in the air, and Draco saw the suspicion visibly deflate from Harry and Ron, replaced with plain sadness in its stead.

Ron gave him back a curt nod, and then fiddled with the long stem of his dirty glass. He released a heavy sigh, and with an uncharacteristically subdued quietness, admitted, “Malfoy…what happened to Fred wasn’t your fault. It’s not like you were the one who cast the curse at him. It sucks what happened, and I miss Fred every day, but it’s not like I can really blame you for it.” 

Harry continued to stare at him intently, but Ron simmered down, and that was the closest to a truce the 3 of them were going to get. Hermione, however, beamed like she had just witnessed world peace, and almost looked like she wanted to hug him. Draco realized with a strange sort of resignation, that he really wouldn’t have minded if she had.

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

Despite what had felt like a very long chat, by the time the 4 of them emerged from the musty confines of the Hogshead, the torrential rainstorm had hardly lightened up. In fact, it looked even more somber with the waning sunlight fading behind the clouds.

Hermione let out a sharp gasp and flipped her wrist to look at her watch. “What?! How has it gotten so late? Oh no, I still need to go to Scrivenshaft’s to get some new quills.”

“Hermione, calm down,” Ron reassured, unperturbed. “As long as you get through the door before closing, old Scrivenshaft won’t kick you out.”

But Hermione wasn’t listening, and instead furiously patted at her dress and murmured something about the impractical design of not having pockets.

“Draco!” she cried suddenly, “have you seen my beaded bag anywhere?”

“You mean that gaudy purple drawstring thing you were carrying earlier?”

She shot him a pointed look, but nodded her head in a 'yes'.

“Last I saw it, it was hanging on the back of your chair at Madam Puddifoot’s. Probably left it when we had to make our hasty escape before Weasley burned the place down in a misguided attempt to save your life.”

“Hey!” Ron protested, “don’t try to turn this on me.”

If Draco had been a few years younger, he may have stuck his tongue out childishly. “Simply stating facts, Weasley.”

“Ugh alright, I have to get it… Scrivenshafts can be saved for another day, not like I have my wallet with me anyways,” Hermione rationalized as she popped open her maroon umbrella and prepared to brave the downpour.

Maybe it was because he was still feeling abnormally warm after she had defended him, or most likely it was because he didn’t want to be stuck alone with her two friends, but he dropped a hand on her shoulder and spun her around.

“I’ll get your ugl—I mean, beaded bag from the tea shop. You go ahead to Scrivenshaft’s.”

Hermione blinked, then stared at him quizzically. “No, it’s alright, Draco. I don’t have any money on me, so I have to get my bag first anyways.” 

Extracting his wallet from his trousers, Draco lifted her hand and dumped a generous pile of golden galleons into her palm. Her mouth plummeted open and she immediately tried to shove the money back.

“Draco! No you can’t—”

“Consider it a loan,” he groaned, “and if you must insist on returning the favor, can you buy me a new quill as well? Eagle feather, preferably. You can pick the rest of the details.”

Hermione chewed her lip like she still wanted to object, but her attention was diverted by Ron looming over and gawking at the sparkly coins. “…You think your new boyfriend gave you enough money that we could spend the extra on chocolate frogs?”

“ _Ron!_ ” she admonished and smacked him with her umbrella, the water speckling onto everyone’s faces.

“Ouch! What? I collect chocolate frog cards too and I want to get myself! How can Malfoy have my card before I do?” 

Ignoring Ron, Hermione turned back to Draco and gave him a grateful smile. “Just a loan, okay? Thank you, thank you, I’ll meet you at the front of Hogsmeade in about 20 minutes and we’ll go home afterwards?”

Draco nodded, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Right.”

With a cute little wave, Hermione spun on her heel and headed towards the quill shop.

“Harry mate, you coming?” Ron called as he walked backwards in Hermione’s direction.

Harry, who had been strangely quiet during the whole exchange, gave Ron a reassuring smile and hollered back, “Yes, I’ll be there in a second, just got to use the loo first.” 

“Alright, we’ll see you soon,” Ron answered, and trotted after Hermione as she rounded the corner and disappeared from view.

Ugh, Draco knew where this was going— ‘using the loo’ was practically synonymous with continuing the interrogation of Draco Malfoy. Maybe if he moved fast enough, he could avoid this conversation…

Before Draco could put his plan into motion, however, Harry clapped his hand on Draco’s shoulder and shoved him slightly forward.

“Malfoy, mind if we erm…talk for a bit,” Harry stated more than asked, and then gestured for them to keep walking.

Draco frowned. “No can do, I’ve got a beaded bag to retrieve.”

“It’ll only take a few minutes tops, promise.” Although his words were affable enough, Harry’s tone left no room for argument.

With the feeling of an impending headache throbbing behind his eyes, Draco reluctantly opened his umbrella and stepped into the rain. Murky puddles pooled in the streets in front of them, and he could already feel the dampness beneath the leather of his dragonhide boots. Harry didn’t have an umbrella himself, but appeared to have no qualms about striding through the downpour and set the pace at a brisk walk. Draco sighed, but followed suit, the bottom of his trousers soaking with water almost immediately. 

Despite being the one who asked for the conversation, Harry looked rather worse for wear himself. The Boy Who Lived inhaled deeply and exhaled steadily, then ran his hands through his shaggy brown hair.

“Okay…never thought that I’d be having this conversation with you of all people,” Harry admitted, turning towards Draco with a wry frown.

“We still don’t need to,” Draco offered.

“No no, it has to be done.” Harry squeezed his eyes shut and massaged his temples, like he was steeling himself for swallowing down a bitter potion. “Alright, here goes. To be honest, a small part of me buried deep, deep, deep down inside…saw this coming.”

That was news to Draco. “What do you mean by that, Potter?”

Harry hesitated, but then explained, “When the school year first started, we used to receive letters frequently from Hermione. Twice a day, sometimes. It seems that even though Hermione had skyrocketed to fame and popularity, she still felt very much alone. Ron and myself felt terrible, we didn’t want to leave her alone at Hogwarts, but I couldn’t bring myself to return to that school. It was too overwhelming to even consider going back, all the deaths were still too vivid—the memories literally around the corner. Deaths that I could have prevented if I had just been there a moment sooner. I couldn’t picture myself walking through those hallways where my friend’s corpses had been growing cold…I needed to start fresh. Anyways, I’m getting off topic.”

Harry adjusted his glasses, which Draco noticed didn’t have a speck of water on them and must have been charmed with an _Impervius_ spell. “But then her letters started mentioning you—don’t let it get to your head, they were very minor things. And it almost became normal for all her letters to have at least a few lines related to you. Then sometime after her birthday, the letters stopped coming as frequently…once a week, maybe. It was almost like she didn’t need to write to us to fill some void anymore.”

Harry’s clear green eyes watched him expectantly, as if Draco somehow held the explanation.

“I’m afraid I don’t really understand what you’re getting at Potter,” Draco said.

“I’m just thinking that Hermione may have found something, or _someone_ , that made her feel less lonely.” Harry sighed, and shifted his body to face Draco. “Look, Malfoy. I don’t have a biological family. My parents are dead and I have no siblings. Hermione and Ron are the closest things I have to family.”

“…Alright?”

“And I know Hermione would bite my head off if she knew I was still on this, but I can’t wrap my head around your sudden change of heart. _Why_ did you do those things that ended up earning Hermione’s trust? I don’t know— maybe this is all a bit of fun for you and you wanted to see if it was possible to ‘win over’ the Golden Girl as a challenge. Or, maybe it’s something more practical and you want to use Hermione’s good name and hang around her to drag the Malfoy name out of the mud. I don’t know. But like I said, Hermione is my family, and I want you to stay away from her if you’re just playing around.”

Draco pinched the bridge of his nose and massaged the tense muscles. He wasn’t daft. He knew where this was going.

“You want me to take the Veritaserum, don’t you,” he deadpanned.

“Your words, not mine—”

“Answer me, Potter.”

Harry hesitated, his breath catching, then replied with a solid, “Yes.”

A beat of silence, and then, “Alright.”

Harry blinked, taken aback by the response. “Alright?”

“Yes alright, didn’t I already agree to taking it back in that hovel? Did you think I was only blowing hot air out of my mouth and wouldn’t follow through?”

“Erm…yes, of course I did. You’re Draco Malfoy, the boy who bawled like a giant crybaby from Buckbeak’s little scratch.”

“ _Excuse me_ , for your information my arm was broken.” 

“Yeah? And who’s fault was that? I didn’t see anyone else’s arms get trampled on, he only attacked _you_ because you provoked him.”

Fuming, Draco snapped his fingers impatiently. “Merlin, Potter, you’re still as insufferable as ever. Just hurry up with the potion so we can get this over with. Your long-winded speeches already took 5 minutes and I’ve only got 20 minutes to work with here.”

“Wait.”

Rolling his eyes, Draco huffed, “What now?”

“It’s just…you’re being awfully cooperative about this. What’s your deal Malfoy?” Harry regarded him warily.

Draco shrugged, a droll smile on his lips. “I’m a man who doesn’t have much left to lose. I’ve lost the war. I’ve sunk to the bottom of the societal food chain. My mental and physical health are both in tatters. If you’re so keen on interviewing Hermione about me every time you so much as see her, then you might as well save her the frustration and get your answers from the source. Go on, take what’s left of me.”

The Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, had nothing to say, but a glint of uncertainty flashed through his eyes. Harry held the potion in his grasp, but didn’t move to hand it to Draco.

Draco, however, had a beaded bag to fetch and a clock running down, so he pried the Veritaserum out of Harry’s stationary hands and pipetted 3 drops into his own mouth.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: The Golden trio + Draco are such an amusing combination, both Harry and Ron have barely seen post-war Draco and bring some valid concerns to the table and are honestly just looking out for Hermione :) 
> 
> Generally people seem to think Draco/Ron would have a more tense relationship, but I actually think Ron would come around more quickly than Harry would. Harry, by nature, is more suspicious of people, and I think Draco/Ron could have an interesting friendship spurred by quidditch and being unaccustomed to muggle things. 
> 
> Also, can you believe we're already at chapter 11? Thank you for reading this far and for the lovely feedback!


	12. More than 2 friends

* * *

“So? Are you going to ask me a question or what Potter?”

“I-I don’t know. Bollocks, you made me feel guilty, and I know Hermione’s going to find out one way or another and get upset that I didn’t trust her.”

Draco cracked an impish grin. “I used to think that you and Weasley were pathetic for letting her boss you around all the time. But now, I think I get it. You don’t want to cross that woman.”

Harry chortled. “That time in third year when she broke your nose is still one of the best moments of my life.”

“Then you would have enjoyed it when she slapped me again on the quidditch pitch. My nose was spared that time, but it still left quite a mark.”

This time, Harry out-right laughed. “Did you deserve it?”

“Probably. Frankly speaking, I can be a huge wanker.”

“Hmm…” The smile disappeared from Harry’s face and he hesitated, but then gulped down his reservations and admitted, “Malfoy…I can’t believe I’m saying this, but if you didn’t try to provoke us at every turn, we could have been well, not-enemies. Why were you always such a wanker to us?”

“It’s obvious isn’t?” Draco heard the words flow out of him like running water. “I was exceedingly jealous of you.”

Harry raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Jealous? Of me?”

“Is this really a surprise, Potter? Everyone was jealous of you.”

“But…why? You’re Draco Malfoy. You already had everything.”

Draco smiled again, although no mirth reached his eyes. “On the contrary, _you_ were the one that had everything. The popularity. The fame. The talent. It’s exactly as you say. I’m a Malfoy—popularity, fame, and talent should be in my _blood_. But here I was, overshadowed by you if you so much as breathed. I hated that you were the one to defeat the basilisk. I hated that you were chosen as the Triwizard champion. I hated that you were all the bloody school cared about for the entire 6 years we were there together. No one would have so much as glanced at me if I didn’t throw out my father’s name.”

Draco gripped the handle of his umbrella tightly, his eyes staring at his shoes as he watched himself step on the uneven cobblestones.

“When I became a Death Eater, I finally felt like I had something that even Harry Potter couldn’t outshine me in. It was ironically, the only thing that you weren’t better than me at. Although, this was only because you weren’t stupid enough to become one. If you chose to become a Death Eater, I have no doubts that you would have surpassed me in that as well.”

Laughing bitterly, Draco squeezed his umbrella and the length of the handle trembled in his fingers. “But you know what I hated most of all? I hated that you didn’t shake my bloody hand in our first year. Hated that you chose Weasley over me. If you had shook my hand, everything would have been different, you know.” 

“Well…I didn’t shake your hand because you were being a complete arsehole. You were making fun of Ron’s family for no reason at all,” Harry replied.

“Ah yes, the birth of the Golden trio,” Draco snarked dryly. “Guess what? Or maybe you don’t need to, because it’s not really a surprise. I was bloody jealous that you had them too.”

“Who?”

“Weasley and Hermione, obviously. You had friends who showed you unwavering loyalty, and all I had was Crabbe and Goyle, who I’m sure you noticed were about as brilliant as bricks. Then, when they realized just how far the Malfoy name had fallen out of favor with Voldemort, they were only too willing to throw me to the wolves. I’m not saying that I wanted Vincent to die in that fiendfyre, but if the situation called for it, he wouldn’t have hesitated to murder me…” Draco trailed off, his lips pressing into a thin line as his eyes glazed over with the bitter memory. 

Silence lingered between, as palpable as a winter smog, before Draco threw his free hand up and gestured grandly to himself. “There you have it, Potter. I present to you my dissertation on why Draco Malfoy was, and probably still is, such a huge wanker. Are you satisfied?”

But Harry was unamused by Draco’s sarcastic antics, and frowned hard enough for creases to wrinkle his forehead.

“Malfoy…erm, I think I should clarify that as an 11-year old boy, my only goal in life was to _not_ live in a dusty cupboard under the stairs. I never asked for the popularity or fame. No one wakes up thinking, ‘Oh, I wish I could be the Boy Who Lived and have to murder a noseless sociopath in this world I didn’t even know existed.’ It was just a title that…happened to fall on me. And it was a title with a heavy price to pay, how many people have died in the act of protecting me? How can my life be worth the sacrifice of so many others? Why did the weight of the world have to fall on the shoulders of a 17-year old boy? I wanted to play quidditch and eat chocolate frogs and fall in love just as much as the next bloke.”

Draco regarded Harry silently, then closed his eyes and tipped his head backwards. “It’s tough to be a 17-year old boy in this story.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Harry muttered, “and you’re talking about Ron and Hermione as if they’re like…my henchmen or something, and revolve their lives around me like I’m some main character. I mean, I guess I can see how you think so based on our school years, but Ron and Hermione are their own people, and they can have more than 2 friends.”

His former arch-nemesis nudged him in the stomach, surprising Draco with physical contact that was more friendly than hostile. Harry’s green eyes glittered like he knew a secret. “And you mate, can also have more than 2 friends. Ron and Hermione aren’t dead, and friendships can be made past the age of 17.”

Draco pressed his lips together to stifle even the thought of a smile. “I think this is getting too sentimental, Potter. It’s making me rather nauseous.” 

A hand was thrust into his face, the open palm a mere centimeter from Draco’s nose. Draco blinked, and Harry lowered his hand and outstretched it towards Draco in a handshake. Harry said nothing, but there was a resolute glint in his eyes that caused Draco to pause in his step. These Gryffindors didn’t even make an attempt to hide their intentions—Harry, Ron, and Hermione all wore their emotions on their faces like open books charmed to be read out loud.

Despite understanding the symbolism, Draco turned his head to the side and scoffed. “Come off it, Potter. I don’t care about that stupid handshake anymore.”

Shaking his head, Harry stood his ground. “This moment resulted in 7 years of us being bitter enemies. Humor me, Malfoy. I’m trying to put myself in the shoes of an ignored, 11-year-old Draco Malfoy. Who, by the way, was already a huge prat.”

“Nothing would have changed, Potter. We still would have been enemies,” Draco admitted honestly.

“Would we have?” Harry challenged. He pointed towards Draco’s left wrist, indicating the Dark Mark concealed underneath Draco’s sleeve, and then pointed at the lightning-bolt scar on his own forehead. “We may have been on different sides, but it was the same war.”

“You stole that from Hermione, didn’t you?”

Pointedly ignoring the quip, Harry continued, “And now the war is over, Malfoy. Why should we try to keep staying on different sides? As long as you’re in Hermione’s good graces…why don’t we try to be cordial and reluctant acquaintances?”

Draco regarded Harry’s outstretched hand skeptically, but Harry didn’t budge, and waited patiently for Malfoy to make his move. Finally, after a painfully long stretch of seconds, Draco hesitantly lifted his arm and gingerly returned Harry’s handshake. Harry’s hand was cold and clammy with rain water, but the handshake was surprisingly firm, and Draco felt compelled to return it just as soundly. 

Hermione would have been proud— she might have even smiled again at him too. Gods, she wasn’t even here and he was still unconsciously trying to please her.

“Now was that so hard Malfoy? You’re still as dramatic as ever. Some things never change,” Harry snorted.

Draco clicked his tongue. “Just because Hermione and I are cordial potions partners now doesn’t mean that I’ve suddenly developed a new personality.”

That caught Harry’s attention, and he tilted his head to the side and shot Draco a calculating look. “What’s the deal with you and Hermione anyways? You say you’re not dating but…what are your intentions towards her? Why the sudden interest in Hermione?”

He would have bet a handful of galleons that Harry had forgotten that Draco was still on Veritaserum, and had ended up asking the question that Hermione had so persistently tried to prevent as nothing more than curiosity.

Last time Hermione had been on Veritaserum, she had revealed some heavy, vulnerable thoughts that turned the tide of their relationship.

Now on the other side, what was Draco going to reveal? What sort of sappy, profound, feelings was he going to expose as he plated his heart on a silver platter for consumption?

“There was one time…Hermione came with me during one of my morning runs…” Draco began.

“Mhmm…”

“She had her hair pulled up into a ponytail…”

“…Okay?”

“…and it was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I think I was aroused half the time we were out there. Dreamed about it a few times later too.”

“Malfoy—oh my god—” Harry couldn’t finish his sentence as he dropped his head into his hands and grabbed a fistful of his bangs. “Bloody hell. Malfoy, I could have gone the rest of my life without hearing that.”

Draco’s cheeks dusted with pink and he turned away awkwardly. “You were the one who asked…”

It wasn’t exactly…what he expected the Veritaserum would prompt him to say, and there were many other things locked behind doors and wrapped in boxes regarding his feelings towards Hermione. But at least with the reveal of this embarrassing truth, it was unlikely for Harry to dare pose the question again.

“Bollocks, I should have listened to Hermione,” Harry bemoaned.

“She did remind you that she was the most brilliant witch of her age.”

Rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses, Harry released a low groan. “Malfoy do me a favor would you? When you and Hermione erm…cross that bridge…could you refrain from having an exhibitionist relationship? I’ve already suffered through Ron and Lavender, and endured Ron and Hermione— I may wear glasses but I’m not blind, and there are some things my eyes just don’t want to see.”

Draco chuckled under his breath and brushed off his former enemy’s concern. “There’s no need to be so worried, there are no bridges to cross. Hermione isn’t interested in me. I don’t think she’d choose me even if I was her last resort.”

“Hm.”

How could Potter make a humming sound come off so smug?

Irritated, Draco rounded on him. “What?”

“Do you remember after the war ended, when I gave my testimony defending you?”

“…Yes,” Draco answered; it wasn’t as if it was possible for him to forget.

“To be honest, I mostly did it because Hermione asked me to. She was very insistent on it, and very good at convincing me, you know what it’s like to argue with her I presume,” Harry divulged.

Draco shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “Oh.”

Harry pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “At the time, I thought that she was motivated simply because of her need to do the right thing. You know, that whole two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right thing she likes to abide by. But now, I don’t know, maybe it was simpler than that. For Merlin knows why, maybe it was just _you_ that she wanted to believe in.”

Something warm fluttered from the bottom of Draco’s heart and slipped through his veins, curling in his toes and anchoring him down to the earth.

_I don’t really think you’re an evil person Malfoy,_ her words drifted back to him, dangling above him like low-hanging fruit. 

Harry’s eyes were bright, the tiniest hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “Like I said, just because I wear glasses doesn’t mean I’m blind.”

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

Bollocks. He was so ridiculously late. Curse Potter and his complete disregard for Draco’s need for punctuality. That tosser better have bought him some time, considering it was wholly his fault for Draco’s impending tardiness.

He splashed into another puddle of brown sludge, but at this point, he could hardly bring himself to care— his shoes were more mud than shoe by now. A younger version of himself may have fainted from the audacity of sullying his vintage dragon-hide boots, but the current Draco had lost feeling in his toes long ago, and only could focus on the singular task of reaching his destination.

Gods, Hermione was going to be furious. Draco glanced down at the conciliatory items in his possession— her atrocious beaded bag tucked under his arm, and a huge, carnation-pink box containing one of every dessert from Madam Puddifoot’s. He still expected to receive quite an earful, but maybe he could avoid bodily harm.

As he neared the stone arch that signified the entrance to Hogsmeade, Draco took a breather, and rested his hands on his knees in an attempt to steady his heaving pants. Once his heart no longer felt like it was about to lurch out of his chest, he swept his hair, matted by both sweat and rain, out of his eyes and glanced up.

Like an angel in the darkness, Draco could make out the distant image of a woman pacing restlessly back and forth.

Oh good, those quick, purposeful steps were unmistakably Hermione.

With the knowledge that she had waited for him, he breathed an audible sigh of relief. She was swathed in his black blazer, the hem reaching halfway down her thigh, but the skirt of her white dress still fluttered in the wind. Composing himself the best he could after sprinting in a torrential rainstorm, Draco straightened up and walked towards Hermione with what he hoped passed as a charmingly sheepish smile.

“Hermione,” he called out, waving his free hand to catch her attention.

At the sound of his voice, she halted her steps and whipped her head up. The rest of the words that Draco had prepared died in his throat as he took in the thin rivulets of mascara streaking her cheeks. Dark bags of smudged make-up swelled underneath her eyes, and in contrast, her nose shined a bright rosy red. She sort of resembled a raccoon with a cold.

“Hermione? Are you—”

He was cut off, quite literally, by Hermione wrapping her arms around his middle and effectively choking off all air supply. Their umbrellas clashed together in a clattering of metal, and Draco instinctively dropped his rather than risk the safety of her beaded bag or the box of sweets. It took him a few seconds to realize that she was enveloping him in a crushing hug, and when it finally did register that her warm and soft body was flush against him, he nearly dropped everything in his hands.

Hermione leaned backwards and scrutinized him carefully, patting his jaw and tilting his jaw left and right. Relief washed through her as she noted that he was undamaged, and he felt her relax against him. This relief, however, was immediately replaced by hot ire. 

“Draco Malfoy,” she enunciated by prodding him in the chest with her index finger. “You are so incredibly late. I’ve been waiting here for nearly an _hour_.”

“I know, I know.”

“If you were alright, why didn’t you just apparate here?!”

“Er,” Draco dangled her bag and the pink box in front of her face. “Didn’t want to risk losing the cargo in the disapparition process. To be fair, the distance from Madam Puddifoot to here looks like a hop and skip away. That is, until you have to walk it.”

Only half-listening, Hermione pounded on his chest, each thump resounding in time with her words. “I was so worried! Don’t you dare do that again!”

Draco winced; he grabbed her hand and pried her fingers loose from being fisted, then inserted his hand into hers and squeezed. “Relax Hermione, don’t worry, I got your beaded bag for you. And I figured that you might be hungry, so I also brought some food as well.”

“No! That’s not the issue here, I don’t care about that!”

His face fell, and here he thought he had done something right. Hermione caught his expression before he could conceal it, and she softened her eyes just a fraction.

Suddenly, it dawned on him that she had found her alone— was that what she was worried about? A frown tugged at the corner of his lips, and he gripped Hermione protectively.

“Hey, where are Weasley and Potter? What the hell? Did they leave you alone the whole time?”

Hermione brushed off his concern with a wave of her hand. “Harry and Ron left a few minutes ago. Or more accurately, I ordered them to leave because I could very well handle being here by myself.”

Draco scowled. “They still shouldn’t have left you.”

“I don’t need my friends to babysit me,” Hermione refuted, rolling her eyes.

This stubborn witch. Draco sighed, but let it go for now and inquired, “Then what’s got you so worked up? Your beaded bag has returned to your possession, and seeing as you sent your friends home, there’s nothing dangerous here.”

“My gods, Draco for someone so clever, how can you be so dense?”

“Dense? How so?”

“I was bloody worried about _you._ ”

“Me? What for?” Draco said incredulously, jabbing his thumb towards himself as if to verify that he heard things correctly.

Hermione nodded in affirmation. “Because you’re never late Draco. Even if you don’t want to be there, you still show up on time. I was worried that something bad had happened, like someone recognized you and tried to heckle you, or worse, hurt you or even kidnapped you. I was this close to sending out my patronus to search for you and going around Hogsmeade myself, but for some reason, Harry kept telling me not to do so. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have listened to him, the anxious pacing probably shaved off a year of my life.”

Draco blinked. It wasn’t like no one had never worried for Draco before. In fact, he’d even go as far as saying that he had been constantly fawned over and had shamelessly lapped up every ounce of attention. But as he grew older and the entertainment of being a childhood bully morphed into the cruelty of being a real villain, he had grown more and more cognizant of how little sympathy he deserved.

It was a strange feeling to be once again the object of someone’s heartfelt worry.

“…I’m sorry,” was all he could manage to say.

It was painfully insufficient. But either Hermione was too worn out by the events of the day, or she was disarmed by the mere fact that Draco had the capacity to apologize so many times in one evening, that her anger simmered down to an irritated pout. 

“You should be. I’m bloody exhausted,” Hermione complained.

Draco combed his fingers through her hair, her updo now frizzy and lopsided from a full day of rain and pacing. He gently tugged out her hairband, and her fluffy hair cascaded freely over her shoulders. He kneaded at the tense muscles surrounding her neck, then stroked her back, his warm fingers raising goosebumps all over her exposed skin.

“Unless you’re fighting a dark wizard, you better just apparate to me next time,” she grumbled, cranky even as she dropped her head and closed her eyes in bliss.

Draco’s lip twitched into half a smirk, and he fought the urge to lean forward and press his lips against her forehead. Instead, he opted for wiping the mascara stains off her pale cheeks with the back of his hand.

“It’s been a long day. Let’s go home?” he suggested.

Hermione nodded her assent, and smiled prettily with all her teeth. “Yes, I think I would very much like that.”

Both of them glanced sidelong at their two umbrellas—Gryffindor maroon and Slytherin green— that had been cast aside during their reunion. Hermione walked over to his green one and picked it up, then motioned towards Draco.

“My beaded bag, please.”

Draco obediently obliged and pulled the drawstring off the crook of his elbow and into her open palm.

Hermione pulled close his umbrella and wound the strap tightly before popping open her bag and dumping in his umbrella. Astoundingly, the entire umbrella disappeared into the yawning maw of her bag and seemed to freefall for a time before landing with a soft thud.

Draco raised an impressed eyebrow—was that perhaps an extension charm?

“My, my, is that a violation of the Statute of Secrecy I see there?” Draco noted, intrigued.

“Sometimes practicality takes higher precedence than rules,” Hermione replied snootily. At Draco’s amused expression, she continued, “Oh, like they can really do anything to me after this charm helped me save the entire Wizarding world.”

She bent forward and picked up her own umbrella, then brandished her wand and incanted out _Engorgio._ Closing the distance between them, Hermione reached down to grab his hand and laced their fingers together. “I believe it makes the most sense to share one umbrella. After all, you need a free hand to eat these pastries you picked up for us,” she reasoned, nodding her head towards the pink box in his other hand.

Draco shrugged—composed on the outside, but internally self-conscious about the cold clamminess of his fingers and rough callouses on his palm.

As if sensing his discomfort, Hermione gave his hand a firm squeeze and held on even tighter. She finished up her magic by casting a _Scourgify_ and a warming charm, then lead them on the road back to Hogwarts. She relieved Draco of the pink pastry box and cracked open the lid. The sweet scent of warm vanilla sugar and whipped chocolate frosting drifting towards their noses. His stomach gurgled embarrassingly loudly.

After taking inventory of the contents, she shot Draco a dry smile. “While I appreciate the gesture, were you trying to feed me, or my entire dormitory?”

“Since Weasley oh-so-kindly interrupted your first experience at Madam Puddifoot’s, I figured we could at least still have the one-of-everything experience.”

Hermione laughed and selected a dark chocolate Cauldron Cake from the assortment, demolishing half of it in one bite. She sighed in contentment. “Ohh this is heavenly, it’s so good. Thank you, I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

“Considering that all we had to consume today was a few sips of tea and the dust mites from the Hogshead, that isn’t terribly surprising.”

Half a cauldron cake was abruptly shoved under his nose and enticingly waved in front of him. When Draco realized that Hermione intended to feed him, he tentatively opened his mouth and she shoved the entire pastry in. It was a strangely…intimate gesture, technically an indirect kiss, and he felt himself blushing from just the thought. Merlin, he was acting like a third-year on their first date.

“F-Y-I, I do owe you quite a bit of galleons,” Hermione said, completely oblivious to Draco’s distracted train of thoughts. 

“Hm?” he intoned, careful not to rudely open his mouth and showcase fluffy cake.

“After buying the quills at Scivenshaft’s, we sort of spent the rest of your money on chocolate frogs. About 20 of so of them,” Hermione smiled, as if reliving the experience.

“And we didn’t get a single card of Ron! Plenty of Harry and myself though. Ron was so huffy about it.”

“He should take it as a compliment. His card is more rare.”

Hermione peered up at him through her lashes, they were clumped with wet mascara, but her brown eyes still shined brightly underneath. “I take it you wouldn’t be willing to give yours up?”

He shook his head and fished out the card from his pocket. His thumb roved over the raised ridges of the golden _Ronald Weasley_ inscription, and he stared at the portrait of the red-head wizard with a begrudging acceptance.

“No, it turned out to be a good omen.”

A slow smile curved up of Hermione’s lips. “Does that mean you’d be willing to see them again?”

“…I’m not even going to deign that with a response.”

She rolled her eyes, although it was with an amused sort of exasperation, and then swung their hands back and forth.

Malfoy looked down, eyeing their joined hands.

_I don’t really think you’re an evil person Malfoy,_ the phrase repeated itself inside his head.

If she didn’t think that he was an evil person…what did she think? Was she satisfied with their status as cordial potions partner? Or was she thinking about something more…could it be possible that…

Draco shook his head; he could have quietly slipped his hand out of hers and returned it to his pocket, he could have asked for his umbrella back and prevented his shoulders from getting drenched.

But he did none of those things, and chose to let this moment simply exist.

Come tomorrow, Hermione may come to her senses and realize that it had been a strange day filled with strange situations, but for now, this was the closest he’s felt to happiness for a very long time.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Ahh I seem to adore writing cute rain/romance scenes ^^ and while I think it may have been fun to have Harry ask Draco a lot of embarrassing questions, it fit the narrative more to delve into Harry/Draco's rocky dynamic and round out his growth with other relationships as well. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	13. Schoolyard gossip

* * *

_Tap. Tap._

_Scritch._

The light scraping sound was barely above a few decibels, but Draco bolted upright and blinked himself into consciousness. There was once a time in his life where he could sleep through an earthquake on his goose-down pillows and in his silk pajamas, but nowadays, he stirred from a pin dropping. The sun had already risen above the horizon like a sphere of molten orange— it was already past 5 am, he didn’t have a nightmare last night?

_Tap. Scritch._

Bleary-eyed, Draco followed the scratching until his gaze landed on a black owl waiting patiently by his window. He snapped awake and rubbed the sand dust from his eyes— Altair had returned. Draco padded silently to the window, careful not to wake either of his dozing roommates and have to answer their nosy questions, and unlocked the window’s latch.

The Malfoy family owl extended its leg and proffered an unlabeled and unassuming black box. Draco unraveled the intricately tied knots and ran his fingers over the smooth edges of the box. Altair stared at Draco with unblinking, ochre yellow eyes, so he fed the Great Horned owl a treat and stroked his carefully manicured feathers. Satisfied with the successful transaction, Altair took off, his wings glistening like obsidian as they flapped powerfully in the morning sunlight.

On the outside, it seemed as if the box contained nothing of interest, but Draco knew that Narcissa was far more clever than she was given credit for. Channeling his magic to the tips of his fingers, the box dimly glowed as it recognized his magical signature, and he heard a faint clicking sound as a notch appeared. Taking out his wand, Draco pricked a tiny bubble of blood from his finger and dripped it into the notch. The box unlocked with a quiet pop, and Draco pulled out the drawer to reveal a tiny vial and a rolled-up scroll of parchment.

_Be careful, my darling – NM,_ his mother’s elegant script read; Draco squeezed the note in his hand, but then tucked it back into the box.

Slowly, he pulled out the vial and marveled at the pearly tears that sat in a shallow pool of liquid at the bottom of the glass. He shifted it slightly, and under the morning sun, the tears reflected like a kaleidoscope of rainbow colors.

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

Someone was watching him. Draco whipped around and caught the eye of an unfortunate first-year Ravenclaw. After drilling him with a glare severe enough to slice through steel, the young boy dutifully slinked away. When Draco turned around, however, he was met with another open-mouthed stare from a curious Hufflepuff.

No, it wasn’t that someone was watching him. _Everyone_ was watching him.

Not that this was anything really new.

In the first few weeks of Draco’s return to Hogwarts, he had been constantly observed like a cursed mythical creature— something to be curious of, but to never get too close to. Whispers fluttered through the halls and students purposefully swerved out of the way like he held the plague, but Draco had too much shite in his head to worry about being on the bottom rung of the social ladder.

However, over time, even kids lost interest in poking a sleeping dragon that wouldn’t breathe fire or unsheathe its claws. He had managed to fade into the shadows, and there was a unanimous shift from morbid interest in the sad life of Draco Malfoy to plainly ignoring him.

So, what was with the sudden uptick of curiosity today? To his knowledge, there had not been any news of Death Eater uprisings…

With these thoughts brewing in his mind, he nearly missed the surprised expressions on his roommates’ faces as he settled across from them.

On instinct, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What’s with those looks?"

Theo and Blaise exchanged a glance, but Blaise gave up on the silent conversation in a matter of seconds and turned his attention to his beloved sandwich. Tutting his tongue at his friend but appearing wholly unsurprised, Theo sighed dramatically.

“Bloody hell, why do I gotta be stuck with the dirty work?” Theo grumbled under his breath.

“Dirty work?” Draco inquired, the embers of irritation already flickering beneath his tongue.

Sighing again, but with the lightest gleam in his eye that implied he found something rather amusing, Theo waved around a folded piece of paper.

“I take it you haven’t read the paper yet, have you?”

Draco didn’t like where this was going, but begrudgingly answered, “No, I haven’t. Is there something I should be aware of?”

In response, Theo spun the paper across the table, and it revolved at a speed where Draco could only see blurred lines of text.

“Why don’t you see for yourself?” Theo suggested in a smooth tone that made Draco instantly wary.

Slamming his palm onto the table, Draco halted the paper mid-spin. What was it going to be this time? A timeline on the Malfoy family’s infamous downfall? An editorial on why his father’s prison sentence was insufficient? A petition calling for his immediate expulsion from Hogwarts?

“It’s probably not any of the things you think it is,” Blaise interrupted his presumptions, sparing a moment away from his ham and cheese sandwich to stare blandly at Draco.

“It’s probably _worse_ than any of the things you think it is,” Theo chimed in.

Draco rolled his eyes, really? He endured mud-slinging from the press on nearly a daily basis, how could today be worse? Dramatic should be listed as one of the Slytherin traits with the way these 2 were going.

He flipped over the newspaper without providing a verbal response—there was no need to unnecessarily drag out the suspense any longer. What lovely Malfoy-besmearing article was he going to lay his eyes on today? His money was on the expulsion petition finally reaching enough signatures, it could have been finished much sooner if it wasn’t for all the red-tape and bureaucracy of the Ministry— oh no.

As he absorbed the bold inked headline and blown-up photos splattered over the front page, the rest of his sardonic thoughts died like falling ash.

This was…this was. Oh, fuck. 

Where to begin.

Smack in the middle of the front page was a blown-up photo of Hermione and himself snapped at the moment when they reunited at the entrance to Hogsmeade; her arms were wrapped tightly around his waist while he stiffened at the unanticipated contact. Draco clenched his fists so tightly that he tore a gaping hole through the paper.

This was supposed to be their quiet moment, not cheap material to entice readers to rake their dirty little eyes over.

Not far below this first photo, was another one of Hermione and Weasley purchasing an ungodly amount of chocolate frogs in Honeydukes, chocolate smearing Weasley’s cheeks as they tipped their heads back in laughter.

To the right of this photo and a little smaller than the first 2, was a grainy image of Hermione and Potter in formal dress robes and dancing at some ball together.

His gaze flickered up to the headline bolded in big, black, capital letters.

**Hermione Granger’s Ambition Gone Too Far: Inside the Lies, Heartbreak, and Scandalous Affairs**

_Hermione Granger, who has been famously known for her ambition in becoming the world’s greatest know-it-all and for her smart mouth, apparently has also poured that ambition into her romantic affairs. Affairs, being the key emphasis here. You heard it here first folks, hot off the press. Miss Granger has recently been spotted having romantic affairs with the wizarding world’s Golden Boy Harry Potter, her former sweetheart Ronald Weasley, and the infamously troubled soul Draco Malfoy—all on the same day. First-hand reports from our insider source indicate that Miss Granger has been compulsively lying behind all of their poor, oblivious backs and attempting to string along all 3 of them._

_It started with Harry Potter, who has been rumored to be involved with Ginerva Weasley, the sister of Ronald Weasley, but it seems that Potter has fallen victim to the conniving web of lies that Miss Granger—_

Draco crumpled the paper into a ball and smashed it against the table.

“This is the most ridiculous load of rubbish I’ve ever seen. It’s nothing but lies. I would know, because I’ve once contributed lies about Potter to Skeeter myself,” Draco stopped short, finally noticing that Theo had procured another copy of the paper and was casually leafing through it. “Nott, you bloody wanker, are you actually reading that shite?”

Theo swallowed down a mouthful of toast and matched Draco’s scathing glare with nonchalance. He folded the paper, and then fanned himself innocently with it.

“What? It’s not like _you’re_ going to give up any details. Sure, the journalistic integrity of the Daily Prophet is about as reliable as a troll taking a N.E.W.T exam, but this picture of you and Granger is real, isn’t it?” Theo observed.

“…It’s taken out of context,” Draco reluctantly admitted.

“Even if there was some context behind this photo, the fact remains that she’s touching you,” Blaise commented.

Finished with his sandwich, Blaise leaned over to observe the photograph of Draco and Hermione gleaming in the center. It was glamoured to appear hopelessly romantic.

The photo had been magically enhanced— droplets of rain rewound themselves back in time, giving off the illusion that Draco and Hermione were intimately embracing in a glistening cage of slowly-rising crystals. It would have been beautiful if the accompanying article hadn’t been complete and utter rubbish.

“Just burn that bloody thing before I _Incendio_ you both with it,” Draco growled.

Before he could follow through on his threat with action, however, there was a sudden hush that fell over the long table beside them. The 3 Slytherin boys simultaneously looked over towards the Gryffindor table, where a flurry of owls were noisily hooting and dropping a storm of envelopes in the center of the table. Even from this distance, he recognized the distinctive deep-red color of the envelopes. It didn’t take long for Draco to put two and two together.

With her expression a cross between dumbfounded and dejected, Hermione sat motionless as the Howlers stacked themselves into a towering mountain of hate mail. As the bottom of the pile began smoking and grey fumes clogged up the surrounding air, Longbottom released a resigned sigh and turned to his friend.

“Hermione…if you don’t open them, they’re going to explode. We should open them all at once and get it over with,” Longbottom reasoned gently.

Hermione emitted a frustrated noise and raked her hand through her hair, which was no longer styled with Sleekeazy’s and had returned to its usual fluffy size.

“Rita Skeeter clearly has it out for me, but it’s ridiculous and disappointing to see that so many people still eat up her lies,” Hermione said, exhaling shakily.

Longbottom frowned, then laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I know Hermione, it really isn’t right. But if we don’t open up these letters soon there’s going to be a huge explosion. You’re going to get hurt.”

Hermione didn’t respond, but with a huff, she grabbed a furiously sparking letter and ripped the seal open.

_You should be ashamed of yourself you disgusting slag._

As the red letter shrieked its message and gnashed its jagged paper teeth, Hermione tore open another letter.

_Why do all those boys even like you? You’re really not that pretty. Your face is so plain, and I’ve seen bird’s nests that are less frizzy than your hair._

And another.

_Could it be any more obvious that you’re just trying to seek more attention?_

And another.

_We used to like you but now you’ve been officially canceled._

Hands trembling, Hermione reached for yet another letter…

“ _Wingardium_ _Leviosa!_ ”

In a chaotic ribbon of red, the pile of letters shot upwards and hovered several meters above the Gryffindor table.

“ _Incendio!_ ”

The Howlers were lit ablaze in a giant ball of fire, and the resulting explosion shook the Great Hall like an earthquake in a snow globe. Charred papers and flickering embers rained down from the ceiling in a haze of smoke.

“ _Protego!_ ” A large shield appeared below the shower of sparks, and the remnants of the Howlers harmlessly bounced off and fizzled to the floor.

With soot dashed across her cheeks and fiery eyes to match her red hair, Ginny Weasley emerged from the wreckage and stomped towards the Gryffindor table.

“Hermione! You should have destroyed these stupid things the minute they landed in front of you,” Ginny chided, skidding to a stop in front of Hermione and stamping her feet.

Hermione sighed. “I suppose…but we really shouldn’t be doing something so dangerous indoors.”

“Are you serious? You can’t possibly be worried about school rules while buried under a pile of ridiculous and totally unwarranted hate mail!”

“Ginny…Ginny Weasley?” An unfamiliar voice inquired.

Ginny tossed her head, her long red hair flying behind her, and locked her sharp brown eyes on a young Gryffindor student. “That’s me. What’s it to you?”

“It’s just…” the girl hesitated, but then tilted her head to the side curiously. “Why are you defending her? You are—or were, dating Harry Potter, weren’t you? Didn’t she just steal your boyfriend?” 

Crossing her arms over her stomach, Ginny jutted her hips to one side and scoffed. “Anything written by Rita Skeeter is nothing but rubbish, and this article is no different. Besides, she’s had this on-off thing with my brother Ron for forever.”

“I told you Ginny…Ron and I are really ‘off’ this time,” Hermione muttered quietly, trying to pull at Ginny’s sleeve so she would sit her rump down and stop drawing attention.

But Ginny didn’t budge and glanced at Hermione from her peripheral vision. “Oh, how many times have I heard that? Sure, you guys row all the bloody time but that’s just how it is. It’s like you skipped all the middle part and went straight to the old married couple stage.”

“ _Ginny,_ ” Hermione beseeched and tugged more firmly on her sleeve, “please sit down and we’ll talk more later.” 

“Maybe it’s because she’s been secretly seeing Harry,” the young Gryffindor unhelpfully suggested.

“She wouldn’t,” Ginny automatically defended.

“But it would make sense, wouldn’t it? Harry and Hermione have been close long before you arrived. How long did it take for Harry to even notice you? Plus, they survived through the war together. Didn’t Harry, Hermione, and your brother hide out together in a tent during the war? If Hermione was able to fall in love with your brother, couldn't the same happen with her and Harry?” Another student pointed out from the other side of the table.

“Hermione wouldn’t do something like that,” Ginny snapped back, but her tone was strained, and something like uncertainty flashed through her eyes.

The flicker of hesitancy didn’t go unnoticed by Hermione, and she gaped at her friend.

“Ginny, I assure you that I am _not_ seeing Harry,” Hermione insisted.

Lost in her own thoughts, Ginny murmured, perhaps more to herself than for Hermione.

“…Why is it really over between you and Ron? What other feelings could you have developed that ended up being stronger? There’s no way it could really be Malfoy…he’s just a red herring, isn’t he? If not Ron then…”

“The end of my relationship with Ron has nothing to do with Harry! There is nothing like that going on between us, Harry is like a brother to me!” Hermione interjected.

Ginny nodded, but she averted her gaze from Hermione and looked down at the floor. “Sorry Hermione I just…I think I need a moment.”

The Great Hall had held a collective breath as they watched the tense exchange between the two famous Gryffindors. But as Ginny continued to say nothing and Hermione grew increasingly more desperate, the student spectators exploded in another round of gossip spurred on by the new content. 

_“Ohhh poor Ron and Harry have both been strung along by her all this time.”_

_“Looks like ‘Little Miss Perfect’ isn’t so squeaky clean after all.”_

_“Sure, the words in this article may be a bit dodgy, but these photographs are clearly from the same day.”_

_“Ginny was one of her good friends, wasn’t she? Who would have thought…”_

_“That Howler was onto something wasn’t it? Maybe she’s trying to hold on to her popularity for as long as possible.”_

Hermione clambered to her feet and slammed her fist into the table. She revolved around in a full circle; her eyes narrowed in a stern glare and bellowed, “The article is fake! Not that it’s anyone’s business, but I ran into Draco at Hogsmeade yesterday and then we bumped into Ron and Harry afterwards, that’s all!”

But her voice was drowned out in the tsunami of all the insipid chatter.

No one listened to her. It was if she hadn’t said a thing.

And just like that, Hermione had been transported back to being the 11-year-old pariah she had been in her first year. Hermione’s lip wobbled, and she slunk back into her seat and hunched over tiredly. She buried her face in her hands before her bravado could fully crumple.

Longbottom pulled at the back of her robe and attempted to coax her, “Hermione…let’s just get out of here. There’s no use trying to reason with the entire Great Hall right now.”

Her head shot up and she met Longbottom with a crestfallen frown. “After everything I’ve done for this place, for these people…how can it all be upended by some silly rumors?”

Hermione exhaled once sharply and waved her hand. “I’m fine. Well…alright, I’ll _be_ fine in a bit. I’m leaving now, but don’t come with me. If you do, there might be new rumors associated between _us_ as well.”

Scraping together the remainder of her aplomb, Hermione held her head high and quietly strut towards the double doors of the Great Hall. She opened just one door wide enough for her petite body to slip through, and then disappeared like a star winking out of existence.

Longbottom was right. There was no use trying to reason with the entire Great Hall.

But there was certainly use in _threatening_ the entire Great Hall.

Draco slowly straightened out of his seat until he was standing, his shoulders tensed high and fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles blanched white.

“I think it’s time for every single person in this room to shut the fuck up,” he muttered darkly.

Theo and Blaise exchanged glances with each other as they watched their broody roommate coiled taut like a curled snake.

Draco pounded his fist into the table, the action sending his glass of pumpkin juice careening to the floor and shattering into a mess of shards and orange pulp. Some conversations at the Slytherin table quieted as the students stopped to observe the mess diffusing across the floor, but there was still too much noise, too loud of a cacophony of inane schoolyard gossip and incorrect assumptions. Draco reached for the closest object— his plate of lukewarm food that he hadn’t even looked at, and slammed it into the floor like a beater would have smashed a quaffle.

The talking abruptly halted. Every pair of eyes blinked curiously at the school’s former Death Eater, infamous in his own right despite quietly slipping from the spotlight.

“Every one of you in this bloody room needs to shut the fuck up.”

Draco didn’t roar. He didn’t scream. Instead he spoke with a deadly precision, the calm in his voice chilling the room to an ice cave. He extracted himself from the Slytherin table and walked to stand in the middle of glass shards, pumpkin juice, and fractured porcelain.

“Did the war against Voldemort simply vanish from all of your empty little heads? Did you forget exactly _who_ fought on the front-lines of that bloody war so you could even attend this wretched school? If you did, why don’t you rewind your brains about say, a month ago, when all of you were blissfully laughing it up at her party that she didn’t even attend.”

Draco prowled through the gap of space between tables, his shoes crunching on broken glass and pricking the underside of his feet, but he paid it no mind.

“You all lauded Hermione as a hero, idol, role model—but the moment some schoolyard gossip comes out that doesn’t align with your picture-perfect image of her, you tear her down to shreds. If any of you actually held a sliver of concern for Hermione, why would you drop her like dragon dung the moment it was no longer popular to like her? And if any of you had a lick of common sense, it’s as clear as day that there isn’t an iota of truth in that article. Why would anyone bloody believe Rita Skeeter over Hermione herself? You really think the most brilliant witch of her age would betray her 2 best friends? And if that wasn’t enough, this picture of Potter is from bloody 2 years ago!”

Pausing somewhere at the Gryffindor table, Draco glared balefully at the female Weasley. She didn’t look away, and bravely set her jaw and lifted her chin, but at least her eyes had the sense to look a bit guilty. Beside her, Longbottom stared at him with an irritatingly knowing smile and even gave a discreet nod of approval.

Dropping eye contact with the smarmy Gryffindor, Draco continued to pace down the table.

“If you all wanted someone to hate, then hate someone who actually deserves it. Me. Draco Malfoy. The idiot who became a Death Eater at 16 years old and killed my youth by terrorizing other children and bringing murderers into this very castle. You should all hate me. You all have every reason to do so. What you don’t have is a _single_ reason to hate Hermione, who for fucks knows why, is always ready to go to hell and back for people who don’t deserve it. If any of you dare to hurt Hermione in my presence, I will use all my personal faculties to end you. I swear it.”

The silence lingered palpably as the weight of Draco’s words settled over the Great Hall. Good. Clearly everyone had learned their lesson and had nothing to refute, and he could exit the large double doors without fanfare and recede back into the shadows.

But then, a Hufflepuff girl with cropped blonde hair and an inquisitive gleam in her eye pointed at him and announced loudly, “So…does that mean you’re the real boyfriend? Hermione’s not dating 3 men because she’s only dating you?”

Murmurs rumbled from the surrounding tables, and it didn’t take long for a new wave of conversations to ripple over the Great Hall. 

_“So this picture is actually real? Malfoy and Granger? How did that happen? Wasn’t he a total wanker to her for 7 years?”_

_“Well I guess I can’t completely blame Hermione, in the right light and if you could forget about the more unpleasant parts of his personality, Malfoy’s really quite fit.”_

_“I don’t trust this bloke. Why would Granger choose Malfoy over Weasley or Potter? Isn’t Granger afraid that he’s going to turn on her when another dark wizard shows up?”_

_“Ohhhh, this is kind of romantic, isn’t it? The Death Eater fell in love with the muggle-born. Like star-crossed lovers!”_

_“Yeah, that speech gave me chills. Find a man who talks about you the way Draco gives speeches about Hermione.”_

The blood rushed to Draco’s face, the heat spreading across his neck and running to the tips of his ears. This…was not what he had intended. Was it really too much to ask for people to focus on the content of his words rather than latch onto the crumbs of a non-existent romance?

“Oi, Malfoy!” Someone called out to him, and he automatically groaned as he recognized the distinctly insufferable voice. Draco slowly pivoted on his heel and broadened his shoulders as McLaggen lumbered towards him.

“So, it turns out _you’re_ the one that Hermione ditched me for to go to Hogsmeade with? Ha,” McLaggen snorted, placing his meaty hands on his hips. “F’real? What, did you _Imperio_ her too? Or was it some other dark arts shite? Bloody hell, I _really_ don’t know why you still haven’t been locked up in Azkaban yet.”

“Say another word and it’ll be your last,” Draco snarled, taking a step forward.

“Really?” McLaggen replied, amused. Towering over Draco by a few centimeters, McLaggen used his height advantage to flex his jaw muscles and look down his nose condescendingly. “’Cause last I recall, you’re one misstep away from a one-way ticket to Azkaban. You’re all talk. You can’t do anything to me, Malfoy. You’re powerless and useless without your Death Eater father and Death Eater friends.”

Seething so hotly that his fingertips sparked with magic, Draco drew back his hand into a tight fist. He flexed his fingers in an attempt to control the overwhelming flow of magic, the entire length of his arm trembling.

“Do it,” McLaggen whispered, his face contorting with a pompous sneer that Draco very much wanted to strangle off his face. “Do it, and then go join your father in prison where you dirty Death Eaters all belong.”

Sweat clung to his skin and tiny pricks of blood slipped down his palm from how tightly he clenched his fists. With every fiber of his soul, he hated this bloody wanker. But he couldn’t hit him in front of all these witnesses. He couldn’t break Hermione’s vouch of good faith. And he couldn’t let her down by getting shipped off to Azkaban.

Taking a deep breath through his mouth, Draco loosened the tension in his body and forced himself to stand down.

McLaggen smirked and leaned down to whisper in his ear, “That’s what I thought.”

However, before Draco could even retort, another person approached McLaggen and tapped him on the shoulder.

Confused, McLaggen turned around to scowl at the newcomer. “Who the hell are you?”

Theodore Nott stood before him, smiling a boyish grin and clasping his hands behind his back.

“Oh, who I am isn’t important,” Theo informed loftily.

“I’m in the middle of something here, so sod off, yeah?”

Theo chuckled good-naturedly, but as McLaggen lost interest and turned away, Draco saw the shadow of darkness shroud his piercing green eyes. As ridiculous as Theo could be, he had been sorted in Slytherin for a reason.

“For a baboon who’s learned how to speak human language, you are actually right about something,” Theo delivered so pleasantly that McLaggen didn’t register the insult right away. The Gryffindor boy whipped back around and leered menacingly over the shorter Slytherin.

Theo didn’t bat an eyelash and continued, “Malfoy here, is very unfortunately indeed on his probation period. But do you know who isn’t?”

McLaggen threw his head back and laughed uproariously. “You couldn’t possibly be thinkin’ about taking me on, could you? Look at yourself, you’re so weedy and stringy that I would snap you in half with my pinky finger.”

A smile curled up Theo’s lips, but it was so devoid of humor that the action could only be described as unnervingly creepy. His eyes glittered mirthlessly as he stared at McLaggen and placed a regretful hand against his heart.

“Oh, my dear Cormac. You couldn’t possibly be insinuating that _I_ am interested in fighting you. Oh, no no no,” Theo replied, shaking his head emphatically. 

Before McLaggen could even wrinkle his brow in confusion, a fist came speeding at him like a flying curse and clobbered him across the jaw. McLaggen stumbled onto the table in an unceremonious heap—food and pumpkin juice and plates scattering everywhere in an explosion of scraps and shards.

A few paces away, Blaise stood where McLaggen was moments ago and cracked his knuckles in a series of ominous pops.

“But you see our dear friend Blaise here, who usually prefers to be nonconfrontational and keep his nose out of things, can get really nasty when he runs across a wanker he simply cannot stand. And unlike Mr. Malfoy here, Blaise has no ties to Death Eaters and no looming threats of imprisonment hanging over his head,” Theo casually explained, as if he was explaining the _Wingardium Leviosa_ charm to a struggling first-year student. 

Propping himself up onto his elbows, McLaggen spat out a mass of thick blood onto the splintered table.

“What a cheap shot, Slytherin coward. Don’t go expecting to get any more lucky hits in,” he growled as he staggered back to his feet and lunged at Blaise.

Easily sidestepping the movement, Blaise grabbed McLaggen’s arm and twisted it grotesquely behind his back, then slammed the former quidditch keeper back onto the table.

Rumbles of pattering feet and the clanking of abandoned lunch plates filled the Great Hall as nearly every student jumped out of their seats. Within seconds, a swarm of students had crowded around the two boys and managed to form a rough circle just as McLaggen tried to elbow Blaise in the face. With the honed skills of a chaser accustomed to dodging bludgers at close distance, Blaise deftly pulled back without even a trace of distress. 

“Fight, fight, fight!” The crowded chanted, eagerly stretching on their tiptoes to catch a glimpse of the action.

Shite. This was _also_ not what Draco had intended. 

“Theo, you have to stop him,” Draco attempted to do the right thing. But even he knew that the request was feeble, and not-very-far-deep-down, Draco also wanted to see McLaggen get his arse handed to him.

“Oh, don’t go pretending that you’ve grown a moral compass now, Malfoy,” Theo simpered, coolly crossing his arms behind his head even as the brawl broke out behind them. “And you really do owe both of us one. Me, because from the day I met you I knew that sticking my hand into your pot was going to draw me into a world of trouble. Zabini, because he really does hate confrontation, and much rather prefers to judge from afar and point his nose up like the aristocratic snob he is.”

“I know. It is uncharacteristically un-Slytherin for the both of you,” Draco responded, although his voice held an edge of appreciation.

Theo smirked, a glimmer of amusement poking through his unflappable façade. “Well don’t let our sacrifice go to waste. Hurry up and run over to console Granger already.”

“What makes you think—”

“Malfoy, you just gave a speech set for the ending scene of a story and literally started _another_ fight for her.”

Draco sighed. At this point, who was he even kidding?

“Theo…before I leave…”

“Hm?”

Draco subtly shifted his feet so Theo could only see his side profile, and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Thank you…”

Like he had just stumbled upon a gold nugget, Theo perked up. “Hm? I don’t believe I got that? Can you repeat yourself?”

“I said thank you…” Draco muttered again, although he had more than an inkling that Theo was just being a little shite.

“Come on mate, you’ve got to enunciate. I know that we were both subjected to the same pureblood etiquette school.”

“I said thank you!”

Grinning like a Cheshire cat, Theo placed his index finger and thumb underneath his chin. “Oh my, now that wasn’t so hard, was it? Thank you for what? For dealing with 2 moody teenagers as roommates? For being a brilliant wingman despite having you as the most deplorable subject to tout? For being one of your 2 friends left in this cold, cruel, dark world?”

“…All of that, I suppose.”

Theo laughed, loud and boisterous and somewhat unfitting for the situation. “You’ve gone soft, Malfoy. It’s not a bad thing no, but you better not get so golden that you become a Golden Boy yourself and replace us with Potter and Weasley.”

Draco smirked and tipped his head into a nod. “Wouldn’t even dream of it.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: I don't typically post on Sundays but I'm looking at all my meetings this week and 40 emails from the weekend sooo, here it is on a Sunday. :)
> 
> I thought about whether this chapter would be realistic for a while, and I do recall in the books that Hermione received all this unwarranted hate mail from one of Rita Skeeter's articles. There's a fragility with Hermione's popularity that parallels well with Draco's former popularity-- all empty and superficial, and in the end both of them just need a bit more than 2 friends. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think, there's only one more chapter left!


	14. Pursuit of happiness

* * *

Draco settled down beside her, careful to abide by the appropriate centimeters of distance between them, and folded his hands in his lap. Call it some sort of sixth sense, but somehow, he had known that she would be at the quidditch pitch where she had sought him out all those weeks ago.

Even as Draco shifted his weight on the bench and it creaked with age, Hermione didn’t look up from her book. He managed to sneak a peek at the cover as she lifted it higher and caught the title— _Hogwarts, a History_. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Typical, even when she was upset, Hermione couldn’t bear to simply sit still and needed to be productive.

Funny, how things have changed since they were last here. In a blip of a few weeks, they had torn down years and years of walls and bridged together some sort of unexpected friendship.

It hadn’t really been that long since he had been alone in the dark trying to get the hell away from Granger.

Now, the day was bright and the sun shone high in the apex of the afternoon, and all he had wanted to do was find Hermione.

“I’ll find a way to pull that article from the Prophet,” Draco began casually, speaking as if this was an article with a simple typo and not one that had propagated her utter humiliation and ultimately school-wide destruction of property. “The Malfoy family isn’t completely desecrated. I still have some strings I can pull.”

Hermione stiffened, but didn’t avert her attention from her book and even turned a page.

“Draco…you don’t have to do that for me. A few years ago, I did something unpleasant to Skeeter, and since then her ire towards me has only grown. I’m not going to let myself be swept up in her revenge,” she asserted.

“Who says I’m doing it for you?” he shot back, although not unkindly. “I’m also implicated in that same pathetic excuse for an article. It’s not like I appreciate gossip like that circulating around.”

Hermione pressed her lips together, likely forcing herself to refrain from pointing out that she could probably put together an encyclopedic collection of all the Malfoy gossip circulating around that Draco hadn’t bothered to previously contain.

Instead, she opted for changing the subject and remarked, “You arrived much faster than I expected, although a part of me thought that you would never show up.”

Draco raised his shoulders in a half-shrug. “On the contrary, I would have arrived much earlier if it wasn’t for the…events that occurred after you left the Great Hall.”

That finally lured Hermione away from her book. She stuck a feather bookmark to mark her page and then regarded him suspiciously.

“Draco…what did you do?”

“I swear, it wasn’t me who escalated everything. My intentions were not of the violent nature.”

“ _Draco_ ,” Hermione demanded.

“Nothing of particular interest occurred,” he evaded.

She rested her chin in her hands and shot him a look drenched with skepticism. “You might as well tell me now. You know I’ll find out anyways one way or another.” 

Stubborn woman. Sighing, he conceded, “Remember when you told me not to do anything unfortunate to McLaggen?”

Her jaw dropped open. “What did you do?”

“ _I_ barely did anything. My fellow Slytherin roommates on the other hand…”

“No,” she groaned, “I agree as much as the next person that Cormac can be…rather unpleasant. But I don’t want all these fights starting in the name of defending me.”

“To be fair, Zabini’s fight with McLaggen started in defense of _me._ It was only indirectly on behalf of you.”

“ _Blaise_ did?!”

“Don’t worry, Nott was monitoring the situation.”

“How is that supposed to make it better?”

“And as I was leaving the Great Hall, I _may_ have dodged a shepherd’s pie being thrown at the back of my head, and it may have landed on some other unfortunate bloke. This _may_ have a triggered a school-wide food fight, which was again, not my intention.”

“What?!”

“Aren’t you always preaching about inter-house unity and muggle cultural integration? What’s more unifying than muggle-style fist fights and muggle-style food fights being brought to Hogwarts?”

“Draco! As eighth years we’re supposed to serve as role models!”

“Well, that is certainly news to me. I may have missed that memo.”

She rolled her eyes, but Draco noticed her biting on her thumb to refrain from breaking out into a grin. Giving up on _Hogwarts, a History_ and laying the book down on her other side, she turned towards Draco and watched him in silence. In a way that wasn’t entirely uncomfortable, he felt her gaze roam down his platinum blond hair, high cheekbones, and pointy chin, then move back up to his eyes. Hermione scooted towards him, closing the distance between them a little more. 

“Thank you, by the way, for defending me,” Hermione spoke softly.

“I never said that happened,” Draco replied.

“You didn’t need to. I have enough context clues to piece together the story. What else could have started this whole chain of events?”

“They’re all bloody idiots,” Draco suddenly snapped, dropping all pretenses as his temper flared at the memory. “The whole lot of them. You literally save the world and do all this other important shite the other 99% of your life, but all anyone cares about is fake gossip surrounding your supposed love affairs?” 

“I know,” Hermione said quietly. She smiled sadly, placing her chin in both her hands.

“The rumors may have just gotten worse, by the way,” Draco decided to warn her. Why not? She was going to find out anyways, and she might even find it humorous enough to cheer her spirits.

“What could possibly be worse than me hypothetically cheating on you, Ron, and Harry all at once? Also, that photo of Harry and myself is from 2 years ago! How did no one notice that?”

“Some people are under the impression that I’m the real one,” Draco explained.

“Real what?”

“The real boyfriend.”

“Oh.”

Despite waiting a few seconds for the news to sink in, Hermione’s expression remained stoic.

At best, her reaction could be described as indifferent, and it was all…strangely anticlimactic.

Draco had expected her to burst out into guffaws, smack him on the arm, and then go into a long-winded lecture on the illogical and irrational notion that the two of them could ever be together. But instead, she remained uncharacteristically taciturn and picked at her trimmed cuticles like he hadn’t revealed that the entire school thought they were in love with each other. Maybe the thought was so stupid that Hermione hadn’t deigned it worth thinking about.

The train of self-deprecation that Draco was derailing on hit him harder than he imagined, and he struggled to find the brakes.

“So…what do you think?” he probed.

“Hm? Well…I…what did you say to them?” Hermione faltered; her voice squeaking at an oddly high-pitch.

Draco shrugged. “Nothing really, I figured that when they came to ask you about it later you would correct them.”

“Oh,” was all she replied with again. Her attention returned back to her nails and she refused to even glance at him from her periphery.

The two of them had shared their fair share of silences, but none of them compared to the suffocating awkwardness of this current moment. Bollocks, he shouldn’t have brought it up. Of course it would only make her feel uncomfortable. However, he still had one trick left up his sleeve, and if this didn’t make her happy, then he truly didn’t understand women at all.

“Hermione, I want to show you something,” Draco began, as he slipped his hand into his robe and pulled out a folded piece of parchment.

“Hm?” she hummed distantly, moving from fidgeting with her fingernails to a loose thread on her robe.

“Take a look,” he said, proffering the paper to her.

Hermione accepted it with only a slight lift of her eyebrow to indicate her interest. Gingerly unfolding the paper, Hermione began reading. Never one to turn down an opportunity for learning, Draco watched as the brilliant gears in her mind went to work in digesting his research.

Each stage of understanding reflected clearly in her expressions— she raised both brows and her eyes sparked with interest, then her jaw unhinged until her mouth parted open, and finally, she whipped towards Draco with huge, disbelieving brown eyes.

“Draco! This is amazing!” she chirped.

Draco smirked, puffing out his chest a bit.

“Dittany…ground up moonstone dust…I mean, it’s just a recipe but the theory is sound. If we could run some experiments you could very well have a cure-all salve on your hands that can counteract any dark curse. The only issue is…well, one of the ingredients is incredibly rare. It’s not every day that someone can get a hold of—”

“Phoenix tears?” Draco finished for her, and waved a tiny bottle under her nose.

Hermione gasped and leaned forward excitedly. “Wow! How did you manage to get a hold of that?”

She held her hand out in a silent bid to examine it further, and Draco obliged her. Their skin brushed for only the briefest of moments, but her warmth lingered on his fingers and tingled throughout his entire nervous system. 

He cleared his throat and replied, “I’ve had this since the day I was born. Every Malfoy does, it’s a precaution to ensure that the Malfoy lineage can carry on.”

“Wow…I’ve never seen Phoenix tears up close like this. Look at the quality of these tears, they’re so viscous! And the way the light shines so iridescently is unlike any other type of magic—”

Draco waited patiently as Hermione continued describing all the properties and characteristics of Phoenix tears with textbook-verbatim accuracy. He already knew all the facts she recounted, but it was charming to see how excitable Hermione became from any sort of new magical discovery. He could only imagine how she would react to the grandiose that was the Malfoy library collection. It was likely that she would huddle in one of the leather arm chairs and bury herself in a stack of books, only crawling out of her book fort to seek sustenance. 

Suddenly, Hermione was shaking him by the shoulder and the reverie popped from his mind.

“But Draco, why are you attempting to make a cure-all salve? Oh no, did something happen to your mother?”

Draco shook his head and placed a reassuring hand on her arm. “No, my mother is fine.”

“Then it’s for Blaise or Theo?” Hermione pressed; the worry even more evident in her voice.

“No, it’s not for them.”

Confusion painted her expression and she turned to stare thoughtfully out into the quidditch pitch.

“Perhaps…a business venture then? I’m sure you could churn out quite a profit selling this. But considering this is a Malfoy birthright, it seems almost trivial to use your Phoenix tears for some extra galleons. Unless…maybe this is for yourself?” She glanced down at his concealed Dark Mark, then just as quickly looked away bashfully, her cheeks pinkening.

“No, I’m not going to use it to remove my Dark Mark,” Draco answered her unspoken question for her.

“Then…what did you want to use the salve for?”

“For you,” he revealed bluntly.

Hermione blinked once. “For…me?”

“Yes,” he affirmed, and pointedly looked down at her sleeve, where the _Mudblood_ scar lay underneath.

She gasped and reeled back in her seat, her eyes bulging like round marbles. “Absolutely not— Draco, I don’t want you using your Phoenix tears for me! They’re an extraordinarily rare and powerful substance!”

Expecting this reaction, Draco calmly rationalized, “Why not? My family gave you that scar, so it’s only logical and appropriate for my family to get rid of the scar, isn’t it?”

“No!” Hermione refuted, hopping to her feet and pacing back and forth. “You’re supposed to use those Phoenix tears to save your life when you’re in a dire situation. I’m not taking that safety net away from you!”

“It’s alright Hermione, I rather give them to you.”

“Draco, I really appreciate the gesture. Honestly, I do. But my scar is just some cursed dead tissue embedded in my skin. Please, I much rather that you use an ingredient as coveted as Phoenix tears on something more…important.” 

Draco took a deep breath, his stomach tightening and chest rising and falling with the movement. “Right here in this very spot, you told me that you hate the word, don’t you? Waking up and having to see your scar everyday bothers you, doesn’t it? This is the only way we can get that hateful word off of your wrist and now that you have the opportunity, I don’t understand why you’re not taking it.”

Hermione paused in her pacing. She leaned back until her body thumped against the railing dividing the stands from the pitch, then turned in Draco’s direction but kept her face angled towards the ground. She played with the ends of her hair, twirling a curly brown strand around her index finger.

“I know…I did say that. But I think…I think I’m alright now. Thanks to you, to be honest,” she admitted.

Draco looked down at his hands, idly playing with his Malfoy signet ring.

“How could you be? I haven’t done anything,” he said quietly.

“I beg to differ,” Hermione disputed firmly, “do you remember the day we went into the pensieve and watched your dreams together?”

He abstained from snorting. How could he forget?

“It was more overwhelming than I anticipated to witness myself in the most helpless moment of my life…but…” she trailed off, tucking an errant strand of hair that had fallen into her eyes behind her ears.

“Hermione…if you don’t want to talk about it—”

“No, I do. I want you to know,” she interrupted him, then came back to the bench and settled next to him, leaving almost no space in between. She clutched the bench with both her hands, her nails digging into the wood. “After the war, I wasn’t able to sleep properly anymore. Maybe it started even earlier than that, from when I was on the run with Harry and Ron. I thought that facing Bellatrix again would make me feel like I won, like I didn’t let her control my future. I thought that my fear of her and the night of my torture was the crux of my sleepless nights.”

“But then I saw…I saw the way you looked at me like _you_ were the one being tortured on that drawing room floor. I felt your emotions even as you hid them behind walls and doors and blank spaces of occlusion. I feared what was going to happen as both myself and as you. That day in the drawing room floor of your Manor wasn’t just the worst day of _my_ life, it was the worst day of _yours_ too.”

She stared at him so intensely and with such a myriad of emotions that he couldn’t bear to look away. Somewhere along the way, Hermione had reached for him and now rubbed soothing circles on the back of his hand.

“Neither of us were alone in this experience. And the fact that you were struggling through it so vividly made me realize that it was okay for me to struggle as well. It’s okay if I don’t ‘fix’ myself with one night in a pensieve. It’s okay if I can’t wrap that night up into a box with a neat little bow and shove it far away. It’s okay if I’m _not_ okay for a very long time. Yes, I got this scar on my arm that says _Mudblood,_ but it is just a word. A word that when split into 2 separate words, are just common, ordinary words. And if it’s this word that finally managed to bring us together, then I’m almost grateful for it.”

His heart thumped wildly against his ribcage as his brain blanked, his mouth running dry. It was all he could do to match her gaze and allow himself to drown in her beautiful brown eyes. She looked at him with nothing but trust, baring her soul to him without a second thought.

A few stray tears escaped from the corner of his eyes and slipped down his cheek, the salty residue sticking to his skin and leaving a trail of warmth. 

Who was he kidding? He would give the world to her if she so much as asked for it. 

Forcing himself to say something verbally out of his mouth, Draco persisted and said, “I…still want to make the cure-all salve for you—”

Hermione abruptly cut him off as she pressed her lips against his own. Her lips were warm and velvety soft, and they nibbled tentatively against his lower lip as he remained frozen, unable to move a muscle. A mix of flowers and vanilla wafted from her and flooded his senses, and he had the sudden urge to pull her close and bury his nose into her hair.

But by the time he processed that Hermione Granger was kissing him, she had already pulled away and he had done nothing to reciprocate. She blushed so prettily that Draco could barely comprehend that this was real, much less that this girl had kissed him. His lips tickled euphorically, and if he died right now, he might have been alright with that. But it seemed that she wasn’t done propelling his heart into to the edge of the earth.

“I like you,” Hermione confessed.

Draco opened his mouth, but his brain had lost all ability to formulate thoughts, much less a coherent response.

“Yes, I like you romantically. If that’s what you were going to ask,” she quipped before he had even thought of asking the question.

His face reddened so darkly that he must have resembled a ripe tomato; his pale skin had never been helpful in hiding his flushed cheeks. There was no way that Hermione could have liked him— he was well, _Draco Malfoy._ She could choose literally anyone else in the entire world.

“I—um…are you sure?” he managed to stumble out.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she confirmed, and even had the audacity to giggle. She caressed the side of his face with gentle fingers, sending shivers up and down his spine from the innocent touch alone.

“It means the world to me that you were willing to give up your Phoenix tears, and I truly appreciate the intention. But I’d honestly be a lot happier if you saved them for a dire situation. Thank you, Draco, for turning this scar on my wrist from a horrific nightmare into a happy memory of knowing what you were willing to give me.” 

He leaned into her touch, and brought up his own hand to lay over hers. He sighed and gazed at her with fond exasperation.

“When you ask me like that…how can I say no to you?”

Hermione shifted forward and grinned victoriously. “There’s just one more thing I want to show you, will you follow me?”

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

As the large door to the Room of Requirement quietly clicked behind them, Draco spun around on his heel and stared wide-eyed at Hermione.

She smiled shyly, then swiveled him back around and guided him further into the room.

“Do you remember the day you first brought me here? I figured out almost immediately that you specifically tailored the room for me. I do know how the Room of Requirement works, you know,” she remarked playfully.

The room smelled strangely of burning firewood, tart green apples, and garlic, and he wrinkled his nose at the combination of mismatched smells.

“…Why does it smell like garlic in here?”

“It’s the scent of your Amortentia, is it not?” Hermione explained coyly, her eyes dancing with mischief.

“I didn’t say it was bad,” he tried to salvage. 

As he walked further into the room, he noted that half the explosion of Gryffindor red and gold décor had been ripped out, and in its place, a Slytherin tornado had dumped out green and silver. The walls alternated between red and green like a gaudy Christmas palette, and although the plush rug remained a roaring lion, the squashy red arm chairs had changed to velvet green. There was still a pot of steaming tea on the table in front of the hearth, but it was Earl grey this time, the standard tea throughout Draco’s childhood. He walked towards the side table which had previously only held _Hogwarts, A History_ and an unknown muggle book, but now also included a book on quidditch plays and new texts on potions and ancient runes.

A closet had been added in this iteration of the room, and he opened the door to see quidditch equipment neatly tucked in one half, and black dress robes and muggle athletic wear on the other side.

Draco spun towards Hermione again, bewildered by her meticulous re-imagination.

“Alright, the green and red color scheme is sort of tacky, isn’t it?” Hermione conceded.

“The intention is understood,” Draco answered. In a few long strides, he closed the distance between them and hovered awkwardly in front of her. “But why did you do this?”

“Because you had only catered the room to me, and that’s not really fair is it? This should be a place that is a shared memory for both of us,” Hermione replied.

Pushing up on her tiptoes, Hermione moved to kiss him again, but Draco pulled away. She frowned, withdrawing herself from him. 

“O-Oh I’m sorry…I guess I just assumed…but I shouldn’t have, because now that I think about it, you never did kiss me back or tell me how you felt,” she mumbled, looking down at her shoes. 

“It’s not that, it’s just…” he trailed off hesitantly.

“What?” she prodded.

Draco sighed and massaged his neck with one hand. “Hermione, are you _sure_ this is what you want? Being with me is going to make your life overwhelmingly difficult. I’m a former Death Eater, and the stigma attached to me is going to bleed onto you. Every day will be an uphill battle, and we’re going to be judged and ripped apart by the entire world and face hardship after hardship. Frankly speaking…you can do better than me.”

“I’m exerting an insane amount of control to refrain from smacking you.”

“What?” Dumbfounded by her response, Draco could only blink in confusion.

“Draco…don’t you realize this decision is as much yours as it is mine? It’s not like dating each other is only going to make my life hard. It’s going to make _your_ life difficult too. You’ll be constantly hounded by paparazzi and the press as the Golden Girl’s partner, even more so than you were before. Plus, there’s the whole matter of your parents— will they really accept your decision to date a muggle-born and ruin the carefully sown pureblood Malfoy line?”

“I don’t care what your blood is,” he declared immediately.

“But your parents may not feel the same way. It’s going to take time for them to see other perspectives, and that’s a reality we can’t be blind to.”

Taking him by the hand again, Hermione lead them over to a chaise lounge and motioned for him to sit. “This is going to be difficult. It’s going to be an uphill battle most of our days. But I don’t want to settle for an ending just because it’s convenient. I want to _pursue_ a happy ending. With _you_. Because I like your sarcastic sense of humor. I like that you actually read _Hogwarts, A History_. I like how attractively fit you look in muggle athletic apparel. I like that your all of 2 friends care about you enough to start a muggle-style fistfight. I like you, Draco Malfoy, and I’m willing to dump the easy, convenient endings to pursue this difficult one with you.”

Draco leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together and nuzzled her nose.

“Take it. Take my heart, and take the remainder of my soul as well. You can even filet my heart and crush my soul if you wish. It doesn’t matter, since in actuality, they’ve probably been already yours to break for a very long time.”

“That was really very sweet, but must you always put such a terrible twist on things with the fileting and the crushing?” Hermione teased, then nuzzled his nose back and admitted quietly, “I don’t intend to do either of those things.”

Hermione smiled so beautifully that he could hardly believe he once thought of her as plain, and before she could say more, he dipped his head down and kissed her. For two people who often clashed and argued just as frequently as they spoke civilly, the kiss was surprisingly tender. Hermione’s soft lips moved against his slightly-chapped lips with fervor, and he couldn’t help but be taken aback by how much _love_ she pressed into each kiss. Her breath was warm, and a jolt of excitement ran up his spine as the tip of her tongue swiped against his lips. His fingers danced lightly up and down her back until they settled on her shoulders and he pulled her closer and inhaled her sweet vanilla scent.

“By the way, you smell divine right now,” Hermione noted, breaking away from his mouth to wrap her arms around his torso and bury her nose into his chest.

Chuckling, Draco pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It’s the sweat isn’t it? I think I haven’t stopped sweating since you started your speech on the quidditch pitch.” 

“Well, it _is_ one of my Amortentia scents.”

x-x-x-x-x-x

x-x-x

* * *

As he stepped onto the castle grounds, the cool air ran briskly over his calves. He had permanently traded his trousers for muggle running shorts, because admittedly, they were far more comfortable than the business-casual wear he had previously been sporting.

Draco paused, breathing in the balmy autumn day and filling his lungs with the fresh air of another 5 am morning. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, which meant that he still needed to wait a few more minutes for her to show up.

“Hi,” a familiar voice murmured sleepily. Oh, she was a little early today.

He pivoted around just as Hermione raised her hand to cover a yawn.

“Good morning,” Draco greeted. He noted that her hair was neatly pulled back into a springy ponytail and he watched it sway as she trudged towards him.

“Did you wake up from a nightmare?” she asked, her voice still hoarse from morning grogginess. 

He lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug. “Yes, but it’s alright. I got a few hours of sleep in.”

“Do you need to occlude?”

Draco hesitated, then slowly nodded. “Yes…”

Hermione’s face fell, but she accepted his answer and offered, “If you want to…why don't you tell me about it later? It might make you feel better.” 

“Alright.”

Hermione blinked, taken aback by his response. “Alright?”

Draco rolled his eyes and nearly pouted. “What’s with all of you Gryffindors acting so surprised whenever I agree to do something?”

Giggling, Hermione explained, “Well you _are_ Draco Malfoy and you have a certain penchant for being _not_ very agreeable.”

Draco scowled, but even his frown was half-hearted. Deciding to change the subject instead, he asked, “Did you get any sleep last night?”

She mirrored his previous actions of lifting her shoulders in a slow shrug.

“Yes, I managed to get a few hours in,” she paused, and then rotated on her heel to gesture at the rising sun, just beginning to streak the pale blue morning with golden rays of light. “But I do have a request. I really am not as much of an early bird as you are, must we do this at 5 am in the morning? How about a more reasonable time slot of 7 am?”

A small smirk played at his lips and he acquiesced, “Very well. If that request would make the lady here happy, then so be it.”

“This agreeable Draco is going to take some getting used to…are you going to start sitting at the Gryffindor table and hanging out voluntarily with Harry and Ron next?”

“Let’s not push our luck here,” Draco stated flatly.

Hermione laughed, and pressed a quick kiss on his cheek before giving herself a head start on their morning run. Soon afterwards, Draco followed in her footsteps, no destination or time limit in mind.

The nightmares didn’t exactly go away and the content was still just as unpleasant, and Hermione still had her fair share of sleepless nights. It was with a peaceful sort of resignation that he accepted that the nightmares wouldn’t altogether disappear, nor would the war ever lose a place in their minds.

But it wasn’t as bad as it may seem.

Draco Malfoy was no longer sitting alone in the dark, and he would never be again as long as Hermione Granger was by his side. Only time could tell, but he hoped that one day, he would progress far enough that he wouldn’t need all these walls and doors and mazes to hide behind anymore.

After all, there was something beyond the walls now— hope, and a future.

There was happiness to pursue.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: A huge THANK YOU to everyone for reading and supporting this story! It was a joy to write these characters, and I hope that everyone liked following Draco's journey as much I loved writing it. Also a little Easter egg-- Hermione has had a crush on Draco far longer than he knows, can anyone guess at which chapter? :) 
> 
> If you are willing to and have time, please let me know what you think of this story or share it with others, I almost always will reply to you. :)
> 
> Also, I'm working on some drafts for a more light-hearted sequel that explores the hardships but also happy moments of their established relationship, so hopefully if you liked this story you'll check out this one later too! 
> 
> Goodbye for now, and I wish everyone safe and healthy times!


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